L'    LIBP 
UNIVLR 
CAU. 
SAN 


LIBRARY 

oNivLRsny  wf 

CAUORHIA 

SAN  OJKG: 


ii'l'Miifi?i?i',T,TM9.';„9A'-if onNiA,  san  diego 


^    3  1822  01958  0448 


Social  Sciences  &  Humanities  Library 

University  of  California,  San  Diego 
Please  Note:  This  item  is  subject  to  recall. 

Date  Due 


FEB  0  3  1997 

CI  39  (2/95) 


UCSDLt. 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arcliive 

in  2007  witli  funding  from 

l\/licrosoft  Corporation 


littp://www.arGliive.org/details/congressionalgovOOwilsiala 


$oo&6  iip  SMooHroto  (ilitUcioii 


CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT.     A  Study  in 
American  Politics.     i6nio,  I1.25. 

MERE    LITERATURE,  and  Other   Essays.     i2ino, 
$1.50. 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
Boston  and  New  York 


CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT 


A  STUDY  IN  AMERICAN  POLITICS 


WOODROW  WILSON 


BOSTON   AND    NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON    MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

(Cbe  niter^ibe  ptt^f  ^Tambrttise 


Copyright,  1886, 
By  WOODROW  WILSON 

All  rights  reserved. 


To 

!^i0  ifatljer, 

THI  PATIENT  OCIBE  OF  HIS  TOUTB, 

TUE  QBACIOUS   COMPANION  OF  HIS   MANHOOD, 

as    BEST    INSTRUCTOR    AND    MOST    LENIENT    CKITIOi 

IS  ARECTIONATELT  DEDICATKO 
BT 

THE  AUTHOK. 


t 


PREFACE  TO  FIFTEENTH  EDITION. 


I  HAVE  been  led  by  the  publication  of  a 
French  translation  of  this  little  volume  to  read 
it  through  very  carefully,  for  the  first  time  since 
its  first  appearance.  The  re-reading  has  con- 
vinced me  that  it  ought  not  to  go  to  another 
impression  without  a  word  or  two  by  way  of 
preface  with  regard  to  the  changes  which  our 
singular  system  of  Congressional  government 
has  undergone  since  these  pages  were  written. 

I  must  ask  those  who  read  them  now  to  re- 
member that  they  were  written  during  the 
years  1883  and  1884,  and  that,  inasmuch  as 
they  describe  a  living  system,  like  all  other 
living  things  subject  to  constant  subtle  modifi- 
cations, alike  of  form  and  of  function,  their 
description  of  the  government  of  the  United 
States  is  not  as  accurate  now  as  I  believe  it  to 
have  been  at  the  time  I  wrote  it. 

This  is,  as  might  have  been  expected,  more 


vi  PREFACE. 

noticeable  in  matters  of  detail  than  in  matters 
of  substance.  There  are  now,  for  example,  not 
three  hundred  and  twenty-five,  but  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty-seven  members  in  the  House  of 
Representatives ;  and  that  number  will,  no 
doubt,  be  stiU  further  increased  by  the  reappor- 
tionment which  will  follow  the  census  of  the 
present  year.  The  number  of  committees  in 
both  Senate  and  House  is  constantly  on  the  in- 
crease. It  is  now  usually  quite  sixty  in  the 
House,  and  in  the  Senate  more  than  forty. 
There  has  been  a  still  further  addition  to  the 
number  of  the  "  spending "  committees  in  the 
House  of  Representatives,  by  the  subdivision  of 
the  powerful  Committee  on  Appropriations. 
Though  the  number  of  committees  in  nominal 
control  of  the  finances  of  the  country  is  still  as 
large  as  ever,  the  tendency  is  now  towards  a 
concentration  of  all  that  is  vital  in  the  business 
into  the  hands  of  a  few  of  the  more  prominent, 
which  are  most  often  mentioned  in  the  text. 
The  auditing  committees  on  the  several  depart- 
ments, for  example,  have  now  for  some  time 
exercised  little  more  than  a  merely  nominal 
oversight  over  executive  expenditures. 


PREFACE.  Vll 

Since  the  text  was  written,  the  Tenure  of 
Office  Act,  which  sought  to  restrict  the  Presi- 
dent's removal  from  office,  has  been  repealed; 
and  even  before  its  repeal  it  was,  in  fact,  inop- 
erative. After  the  time  of  President  Johnson, 
against  whom  it  was  aimed,  the  party  in  power 
in  Congress  found  little  occasion  to  insist  upon 
its  enforcement ;  its  constitutionality  was  doubt- 
ful, and  it  fell  into  the  background.  I  did  not 
make  sufficient  allowance  for  these  facts  in 
writing  the  one  or  two  sentences  of  the  book 
which  refer  to  the  Act. 

Neither  did  I  give  sufficient  weight,  I  now 
believe,  to  the  powers  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury.  However  minutely  bound,  guided, 
restricted  by  statute,  his  power  has  proved  at 
many  a  critical  juncture  in  our  financial  history 
—  notably  in  our  recent  financial  history  —  of 
the  utmost  consequence.  Several  times  since 
this  book  was  written,  the  country  has  been  wit- 
ness to  his  decisive  influence  upon  the  money 
markets,  in  the  use  of  his  authority  with  regard 
to  the  bond  issues  of  the  government  and  his 
right  to  control  the  disposition  of  the  funds  of 
the  Treasury.     In  these  matters,  however,  he 


Viii  PREFACE. 

has  exercised,  not  political,  but  business  power. 
He  has  helped  the  markets  as  a  banker  would 
help  them.  He  has  altered  no  policy.  He  has 
merely  made  arrangements  which  would  release 
money  for  use  and  facilitate  loan  and  invest- 
ment. The  country  feels  safer  when  an  experi- 
enced banker,  like  Mr.  Gage,  is  at  the  head  of 
the  Treasury,  than  when  an  experienced  poli- 
tician is  in  charge  of  it. 

All  these,  however,  are  matters  of  detail. 
There  are  matters  of  substance  to  speak  of  also. 

It  is  to  be  doubted  whether  I  could  say  quite 
so  confidently  now  as  I  said  in  1884  that  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States  faithfully  repre- 
sents the  several  elements  of  the  nation's  make- 
up, and  furnishes  us  with  a  prudent  and 
normally  constituted  moderating  and  revising 
chamber.  Certainly  vested  interests  have  now 
got  a  much  more  formidable  hold  upon  the 
Senate  than  they  seemed  to  have  sixteen  years 
ago.  Its  political  character  also  has  undergone 
a  noticeable  change.  The  tendency  seems  to  be 
to  make  of  the  Senate,  instead  of  merely  a 
smaller  and  more  deliberate  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, a  body  of  successful  party  managers. 


PREFACE.  IX 

Still,  these  features  of  its  life  may  be  tempo- 
rary, and  may  easily  be  exaggerated.  We  do 
not  yet  know  either  whether  they  will  persist, 
or,  should  they  persist,  whither  they  will  lead  us. 
A  more  important  matter  —  at  any  rate,  a 
thing  more  concrete  and  visible  —  is  the  grad- 
ual integration  of  the  organization  of  the 
House  of  Representatives.  The  power  of  the 
«  Speaker  has  of  late  years  taken  on  new  phases. 
He  is  now,  more  than  ever,  expected  to  guide 
and  control  the  whole  course  of  business  in  th6 
House,  —  if  not  alone,  at  any  rate  through  the 
instrumentality  of  the  small  Committee  on 
Rules,  of  which  he  is  chairman.  That  com- 
mittee is  expected'not  only  to  reformulate  and 
revise  from  time  to  time  the  permanent  Rules 
of  the  House,  but  also  to  look  closely  to  the 
course  of  its  business  from  day  to  day,  make  its 
programme,  and  virtually  control  its  use  of  its 
time.  The  committee  consists  of  five  members ; 
but  the  Speaker  and  the  two  other  members  of 
the  committee  who  represent  the  majority  in 
the  House  determine  its  action ;  and  its  action 
is  allowed  to  govern  the  House.  It  in  effect 
regulates  the  precedence  of  measures.     When- 


X  PREFACE. 

ever  occasion  requires,  it  determines  what  shall, 
and  what  shall  not,  be  undertaken.  It  is  like  a 
steering  ministry,  —  without  a  ministry's  public 
responsibility,  and  without  a  ministry's  right  to 
speak  for  both  houses.  It  is  a  private  piece  of 
party  machinery  within  the  single  chamber  for 
which  it  acts.  The  Speaker  himself  —  not  as  a 
member  of  the  Committee  on  Rules,  but  by  the 
exercise  of  his  right  to  "  recognize  "  on  the  floor 
—  undertakes  to  determine  very  absolutely  what 
bills  individual  members  shall  be  allowed  to 
bring  to  a  vote,  out  of  the  regular  order  fixed 
by  the  rules  or  arranged  by  the  Committee  on 
Rules. 

This  obviously  creates,  in'  germ  at  least,  a 
recognized  and  sufficiently  concentrated  leader- 
ship within  the  House.  The  country  is  begin- 
ning to  know  that  the  Speaker  and  the  Com- 
mittee on  Rules  must  be  held  responsible  in  all 
ordinary  seasons  for  the  success  or  failure  of 
the  session,  so  far  as  the  House  is  concerned. 
The  congressional  caucus  has  fallen  a  little  into 
the  background.  It  is  not  often  necessary  to 
call  it  together,  except  when  the  majority  is 
impatient  or  recalcitrant  under  the  guidance  of 


PREFACE.  n 

the  Committee  on  Rules.  To  this  new  leader- 
ship, however,  as  to  everything  else  connected 
with  committee  government,  the  taint  of  privacy 
attaches.  It  is  not  leadership  upon  the  open 
floor,  avowed,  defended  in  public  debate,  set 
before  the  view  and  criticism  of  the  country. 
It  integrates  the  House  alone,  not  the  Senate ; 
does  not  unite  the  two  houses  in  policy ;  affects 
only  the  chamber  in  which  there  is  the  least 
opportunity  for  debate,  the  least  chance  that 
responsibility  may  be  properly  and  effectively 
lodged  and  avowed.  It  has  only  a  very  remote 
and  partial  resemblance  to  genuine  party  leader- 
ship. 

Much  the  most  important  change  to  be  no- 
ticed is  the  result  of  the  war  with  Spain  upon 
the  lodgment  and  exercise  of  power  within  our 
federal  system  :  the  greatly  increased  power  and 
opportunity  for  constructive  statesmanship  given 
the  President,  by  the  plunge  into  international 
politics  and  into  the  administration  of  distant 
dependencies,  which  has  been  that  war's  most 
striking  and  momentous  consequence.  When 
foreign  affairs  play  a  prominent  part  in  the 
politics  and  policy  of  a  nation,  its  Executive 


Xll  PREFACE. 

must  of  necessity  be  its  guide:  must  utter 
every  initial  judgment,  take  every  first  step  of 
action,  supply  the  information  upon  which  it  is 
to  act,  suggest  and  in  large  measure  control 
its  conduct.  The  President  of  the  United 
States  is  now,  as  of  course,  at  the  front  of 
affairs,  as  no  president,  except  Lincoln,  has 
been  since  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  when  the  foreign  relations  of  the  new 
nation  had  first  to  be  adjusted.  There  is  no 
trouble  now  about  getting  the  President's 
speeches  printed  and  read,  every  word.  Upon 
hfs  choice,  his  character,  his  experience  hang 
some  of  the  most  weighty  issues  of  the  future. 
The  government  of  dependencies  must  be  largely 
in  his  hands.  Interesting  things  may  come  out 
of  the  singular  change. 

For  one  thing,  new  prizes  in  public  service 
may  attract  a  new  order  of  talent.  The  nation 
may  get  a  better  civil  service,  because  of  the 
sheer  necessity  we  shall  be  under  of  organizing 
a  service  capable  of  carrying  the  novel  burdens 
we  have  shouldered. 

It  may  be,  too,  that  the  new  leadership  of  the 
Executive,  inasmuch  as  it  is  likely  to  last,  will 


PREFACE.  xiu 

have  a  very  far-reaching  effect  upon  our  whole 
method  of  government.  It  may  give  the  heads 
of  the  executive  departments  a  new  influence 
upon  the  action  of  Congress.  It  may  bring 
about,  as  a  consequence,  an  integration  which 
will  substitute  statesmanship  for  government  by 
mass  meeting.  It  may  put  this  whole  volume 
hopelessly  out  of  date. 

WOODROW  WILSON. 
Pkinceton  Univebsity,  15  August,  1900. 


PEEF^.OE. 


The  object  of  these  essays  is  not  to  exhaust 
criticism  of  the  government  of  the  United  States, 
but  only  to  point  out  the  most  characteristic  prac- 
tical features  of  the  federal  system.  Taking 
Congress  as  the  central  and  predominant  power 
of  the  system^  their  object  is  to  illustrate  every- 
thing Congressional.  Everybody  has  seen,  and 
critics  without  number  have  said,  that  our  form 
of  national  government  is  singular,  possessing  a 
character  altogether  its  own ;  but  thdre  is  abun- 
dant evidence  that  very  few  have  seen  just 
wherein  it  differs  most  essentially  from  the  other 
governments  of  the  world.  There  have  been 
and  are  other  federal  systems  quite  similar,  and 
scarcely  any  legislative  or  administrative  princi- 
ple of  our  Constitution  was  young  even  when 
that  Constitution  was  framed.  It  is  our  legisla- 
tive and  administrative  machinery  which  makes 
our  government  essentially  different  from  all 
other  great  governmental  systems.    The  most 


XVI  PREFACE. 

striking  contrast  in  modern  politics  is  not  be- 
tween presidential  and  monarchical  govern- 
ments, but  between  Congressional  and  Parlia- 
mentary governments.  Congressional  govern- 
ment is  Committee  government ;  Parliamentary 
government  is  government  by  a  responsible  Cab- 
inet Ministry.  These  are  the  two  principal 
types  which  present  themselves  for  the  instruc- 
tion of  the  modern  student  of  the  practical  in 
politics :  administration  by  semi-independent 
executive  agents  who  obey  the  dictation  of  a  leg- 
islature to  which  they  are  not  responsible,  and 
administration  by  executive  agents  who  are  the 
accredited  leaders  and  accountable  servants  of  a 
legislature  virtually  supreme  in  aU  things.  My 
chief  aim  in  these  essays  has  been,  therefore, 
an  adequate  illustrative  contrast  of  these  two 
types  of  government,  with  a  view  to  making  as 
plain  as  possible  the  actual  conditions  of  federal 
administration.  In  short,  I  offer,  not  a  com- 
mentary, but  an  outspoken  presentation  of  such 
cardinal  facts  as  may  be  sources  of  practical 

suggestion.  ^ 

WOODROW  WILSON. 

Johns  Hopkins  Univbbsitt,  October  7, 1884. 


CONTENTS. 

PASI 

L  Introductory     1 

II.   The  House  of  Kepkesbntatives         .        .  58 

III.  The  House  of  Reprebewtatives.    Rkvencb 

AND  Supply 130 

IV.  The  Senate 193 

V.  The  Executive 242 

VL  Conclusion      ...••..  294 


CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT: 

A  STUDY  IN  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 


INTRODUCTORY. 

The  laws  reach  but  a  very  little  way.  Constitute  government  bow  yon 
please,  infinitely  the  greater  part  of  it  must  depend  upon  the  exercise  of 
powers,  which  are  left  at  large  to  the  prudence  and  uprightness  of  minis- 
ters of  state.  Even  all  the  use  and  x>otency  of  the  laws  depends  upon 
them.  Without  them  your  commonwealth  is  no  better  than  a  scheme 
upon  paper ;  and  not  a  living,  active,  effective  organization.  —  Bubke. 

The  great  fault  of  political  writers  is  their  too  close  adherence  to  the 
forms  of  the  system  of  state  which  they  happen  to  be  expounding  or  ex- 
amining. They  stop  short  at  the  anatomy  of  institutions,  and  do  not  pen- 
etrate to  the  secret  of  their  functions.  —  John  Mori.et. 

It  would  seem  as  if  a  very  wayward  fortune 
had  presided  over  the  history  of  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,  inasmuch  as  that  great 
federal  charter  has  been  alternately  violated  by 
its  friends  and  defended  by  its  enemies.  It 
came  hard  by  its  establishment  in  the  first  place, 
prevailing  with  difficulty  over  the  strenuous 
forces  of  dissent  which  were  banded  against  it. 
While  its  adoption  was  under  discussion  the 
voices  of  criticism  were  many  and  authoritative, 
the  voices  of  opposition  loud  in  tone  and  omi- 
1 


2  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

nous  in  volume,  and  the  Federalists  finally  tri- 
umphed only  by  dint  of  hard  battle  against  foes, 
formidable  both  in  numbers  and  in  skill.  But 
the  victory  was  complete,  —  astonishingly  com- 
plete. Once  established,  the  new  government 
had  only  the  zeal  of  its  friends  to  fear.  Indeed, 
after  its  organization  very  little  more  is  heard 
of  the  party  of  opposition ;  they  disappear  so 
entirely  from  politics  that  one  is  inclined  to 
think,  in  looking  back  at  the  party  history  of 
that  time,  that  they  must  have  been  not  only 
conquered  but  converted  as  well.  There  was 
well-nigh  luiiversal  acquiescence  in  the  new  or- 
der of  things.  Not  everybody,  indeed,  professed 
himself  a  Federalist,  but  everybody  conformed  to 
federalist  practice.  There  were  jealousies  and 
bickerings,  of  course,  in  the  new  Congress  of  the 
Union,  but  no  party  lines,  and  the  differences 
which  caused  the  constant  brewing  and  breaking 
of  storms  in  Washington's  first  cabinet  were  of 
personal  rather  than  of  political  import.  Ham- 
ilton and  Jefferson  did  not  draw  apart  because 
the  one  had  been  an  ardent  and  the  other  only 
a  lukewarm  friend  of  the  Constitution,  so  much 
as  because  they  were  so  different  in  natural  bent 
and  temper  that  they  would  have  been  like  to 
disagree  and  come  to  drawn  points  wherever  or 
however  brought  into  contact.  The  one  had  in- 
herited warm  blood  and  a  bold  sagacity,  while 


INTRODUCTORY.  8 

in  the  other  a  negative  philosophy  ran  suitably 
through  cool  veins.  They  had  not  been  meant 
for  yoke-fellows. 

There  was  less  antagonism  in  Congress,  how- 
ever, than  in  the  cabinet ;  and  in  none  of  the 
controversies  that  did  arise  was  there  shown  any 
serious  disposition  to  quarrel  with  the  Constitu- 
tion itself  ;  the  contention  was  as  to  the  obedi- 
ence to  be  rendered  to  its  provisions.  No  one 
threatened  to  withhold  his  allegiance,  though 
there  soon  began  to  be  some  exhibition  of  a  dis- 
position to  confine  obedience  to  the  letter  of  the 
new  commandments,  and  to  discountenance  all 
attempts  to  do  what  was  not  plainly  written  in 
the  tables  of  the  law.  It  was  recognized  as  no 
longer  fashionable  to  say  aught  against  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  Constitution  ;  but  all  men  could 
not  be  of  one  mind,  and  political  parties  began 
to  take  form  in  antagonistic  schools  of  consti- 
tutional construction.  There  straightway  arose 
two  rival  sects  of  political  Pharisees,  each  pro- 
fessing a  more  perfect  conformity  and  affecting 
greater  "  ceremonial  cleanliness  "  than  the  other. 
The  very  men  who  had  resisted  with  might  and 
main  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  became, 
under  the  new  division  of  parties,  its  champions, 
as  sticklers  for  a  strict,  a  rigid,  and  literal  con- 
struction. 

They  were  consistent  enough  in  this,  because 


4  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT, 

it  was  quite  natural  that  their  one-time  fear  of  a 
strong  central  government  should  pass  into  a 
dread  of  the  still  further  expansion  of  the  power 
of  that  government,  by  a  too  loose  construction 
of  its  charter  ;  but  what  I  would  emphasize  here 
is  not  the  motives  or  the  policy  of  the  conduct 
of  parties  in  our  early  national  politics,  but  the 
fact  that  opposition  to  the  Constitution  as  a  con- 
stitution, and  even  hostile  criticism  of  its  provi- 
sions, ceased  almost  immediately  upon  its  adop- 
tion ;  and  not  only  ceased,  but  gave  place  to  an 
undiscriminating  and  almost  blind  worship  of  its 
principles,  and  of  that  delicate  dual  system  of 
sovereignty,  and  that  complicated  scheme  of 
double  administration  which  it  established.  Ad- 
miration of  that  one-time  so  much  traversed  body 
of  law  became  suddenly  all  the  vogue,  and  criti- 
cism was  estopped.  From  the  first,  even  down 
to  the  time  immediately  preceding  the  war,  the 
general  scheme  of  the  Constitution  went  vnchal- 
lenged ;  nullification  itself  did  not  always  wear 
its  true  garb  of  independent  state  sovereignty, 
but  often  masqueraded  as  a  constitutional  right  •, 
and  the  most  violent  policies  took  care  to  make 
show  of  at  least  formal  deference  to  the  worship- 
ful fundamental  law.  The  divine  right  of  kings 
liever  ran  a  more  prosperous  course  than  did 
this  unquestioned  prerogative  of  the  Constitu- 
tion to  receive  universal  homage.     The  convic- 


INTRODUCTORY.  6, 

tion  that  our  institutions  were  the  best  in  the 
world,  nay  more,  the  model  to  which  all  civilized 
states  must  sooner  or  later  conform,  could  not 
be  laughed  out  of  us  by  foreign  critics,  nor 
shaken  out  of  us  by  the  roughest  jars  of  the 
system. 

Now  there  is,  of  course,  nothing  in  all  this 
that  is  inexplicable,  or  even  remarkable ;  any 
one  can  see  the  reasons  for  it  and  the  benefits 
of  it  without  going  far  out  of  his  way ;  but  the 
point  which  it  is  interesting  to  note  is  that  we  of 
the  present  generation  are  in  the  first  season  of 
free,  outspoken,  unrestrained  constitutional  crit- 
icism. We  are  the  first  Americans  to  hear  our 
own  countrymen  ask  whether  the  Constitution  is 
still  adapted  to  serve  the  purposes  for  which  it 
was  intended  ;  the  first  to  entertain  any  serious 
doubts  about  the  superiority  of  our  own  institu- 
tions as  compared  with  the  systems  of  Europe  ; 
the  first  to  think  of  remodeling  the  administra- 
tive machinery  of  the  federal  government,  and 
of  forcing  new  forms  of  responsibility  upon 
Congress. 

The  evident  explanation  of  this  change  of  at- 
titude towards  the  Constitution  is  that  we  have 
been  made  conscious  by  the  rude  shock  of  the 
war  and  by  subsequent  developments  of  policy, 
that  there  has  been  a  vast  alteration  in  the  con- 
ditions of  government ;  that  the  checks  and  bat 


6  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

ances  which  once  obtained  are  no  longer  effcc' 
tive;  and  that  we  are  really  living  under  a 
constitution  essentially  different  from  that  which 
we  have  been  so  long  worshiping  as  our  own 
peculiar  and  incomparable  possession.  In  short, 
this  model  government  is  no  longer  conformable 
with  its  own  original  pattern.  While  we  have 
been  shielding  it  from  criticism  it  has  slipped 
away  from  us.  The  noble  charter  of  fundamen- 
tal law  given  us  by  the  Convention  of  1787  is 
still  our  Constitution ;  but  it  is  now  oxxxform  of 
government  rather  in  name  than  in  reality,  the 
form  of  the  Constitution  being  one  of  nicely  ad- 
justed, ideal  balances,  whilst  the  actual  form  of 
our  present  government  is  simply  a  scheme  of 
congressional  supremacy.  National  legislation, 
of  course,  takes  force  now  as  at  first  from  the 
authority  of  the  Constitution ;  but  it  would  be 
easy  to  reckon  by  the  score  acts  of  Congress 
which  can  by  no  means  be  squared  with  that 
gTeat  instrument's  evident  theory.  We  continue 
to  think,  indeed,  according  to  long-accepted  con- 
stitutional formula,  and  it  is  still  politically  un- 
orthodox to  depart  from  old-time  phraseology 
in  grave  discussions  of  affairs ;  but  it  is  plain 
to  those  who  look  about  them  that  most  of  the 
commonly  received  opinions  concerning  federal 
constitutional  balances  and  administrative  ar- 
rangements are  many  years  behind  the  actual 


INTRODUCTORY.  7 

practices  of  the  government  at  Washington,  and 
that  we  are  farther  than  most  of  us  realize  from 
the  times  and  the  policy  of  the  framers  of  the 
Constitution.  It  is  a  commonplace  observation 
of  historians  that,  in  the  development  of  con- 
stitutions, names  are  much  more  persistent  than 
the  functions  upon  which  they  were  originally 
bestowed  ;  that  institutions  constantly  undergo 
essential  alterations  of  character,  whilst  retain- 
ing the  names  conferred  upon  them  in  their  first 
estate  ;  and  the  history  of  our  own  Constitution 
is  but  another  illustration  of  this  universal  prin- 
ciple of  institutional  change.  There  has  been  a 
constant  growth  of  legislative  and  administrative 
practice,  and  a  steady  accretion  of  precedent  in 
the  management  of  federal  affairs,  which  have 
broadened  the  sphere  and  altered  the  functions 
of  the  government  without  perceptibly  affecting 
the  vocabulary  of  our  constitutional  language. 
Ours  is,  scarcely  less  than  the  British,  a  living 
and  fecund  system.  It  does  not,  indeed,  find  its 
rootage  so  widely  in  the  hidden  soil  of  iiuwritten 
law  ;  its  tap-root  at  least  is  the  Constitution ;  but 
the  Constitution  is  now,  like  Magna  Carta  and 
the  Bill  of  Rights,  only  the  sap-centre  of  a  sys- 
tem of  government  vastly  larger  than  the  stock 
from  which  it  has  branched,  —  a  system  some 
of  whose  forms  have  only  very  indistinct  and 
rudimental  beginnings  in  the  simple  substance 


8  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

of  the  Constitution,  and  which  exercises  many 
functions  apparently  quite  foreign  to  the  primi- 
tive properties  contained  in  the  fundamental  law. 
The  Constitution  itself  is  not  a  complete  sys- 
tem ;  it  takes  none  but  the  first  steps  in  organi- 
zation. It  does  little  more  than  lay  a  foundation 
of  principles.  It  provides  with  all  possible  brev- 
ity for  the  establishment  of  a  government  having, 
in  several  distinct  branches,  executive,  legislative, 
and  judicial  powers.  It  vests  executive  power  in 
a  single  chief  magistrate,  for  whose  election  and 
inauguration  it  makes  carefully  definite  provision, 
and  whose  privileges  and  prerogatives  it  defines 
with  succinct  clearness;  it  grants  specifically 
eniunerated  powers  of  legislation  to  a  representa- 
tive Congress,  outlining  the  organization  of  the 
two  houses  of  that  body  and  definitely  providing 
for  the  election  of  its  members,  whose  number  it 
regulates  and  the  conditions  of  whose  choice  it 
names ;  and  it  establishes  a  Supreme  Court  with 
ample  authority  of  constitutional  interpretation, 
prescribing  the  manner  in  which  its  judges  shall 
be  appointed  and  the  conditions  of  their  official 
tenure.  Here  the  Constitution's  work  of  organ- 
ization ends,  and  the  fact  that  it  attempts  nothing 
more  is  its  chief  strength.  For  it  to  go  beyond 
elementary  provisions  woidd  be  to  lose  elasticity 
and  adaptability.  The  growth  of  the  nation  and 
the  consequent  development  of  the  governmental 


INTRODUCTORY.  9 

system  would  snap  asunder  a  constitution  which 
could  not  adapt  itself  to  the  new  conditions  of  an 
advancing  society.  If  it  could  not  stretch  itself 
to  the  measure  of  the  times,  it  must  be  thrown 
off  and  left  behind,  as  a  by-gone  device;  and 
there  can,  therefore,  be  no  question  that  our 
Constitution  has  proved  lasting  because  of  its 
simplicity.  It  is  a  corner-stone,  not  a  complete 
building ;  or,  rather,  to  return  to  the  old  figure, 
it  is  a  root,  not  a  perfect  vine. 

The  chief  fact,  therefore,  of  our  national  his- 
tory is  that  from  this  vigorous  tap-root  has  grown 
a  vast  constitutional  system,  —  a  system  branch- 
ing and  expanding  in  statutes  and  judicial  decis- 
ions, as  well  as  in  unwritten  precedent ;  and  one 
of  the  most  striking  facts,  as  it  seems  to  me,  in 
the  history  of  our  politics  is,  that  that  system 
has  never  received  complete  and  competent  crit- 
ical treatment  at  the  hands  of  any,  even  the  most 
acute,  of  our  constitutional  writers.  They  view 
it,  as  it  were,  from  behind.  Their  thoughts  are 
dominated,  it  would  seem,  by  those  incomparable 
papers  of  the  "  Federalist,"  which,  though  they 
were  written  to  influence  only  the  voters  of  1788, 
still,  with  a  strange,  persistent  longevity  of  power, 
shape  the  constitutional  criticism  of  the  present 
day,  obscuring  much  of  that  development  of  con- 
stitutional practice  which  has  since  taken  place. 
The  Constitution  in  operation  is  manifestly  a 


10  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

very  difFerent  thing  from  the  Constitution  of  the 
books.  "  An  observer  who  looks  at  the  living 
reality  will  wonder  at  the  contrast  to  the  paper 
description.  He  will  see  in  the  life  much  which 
is  not  in  the  books ;  and  he  will  not  find  in  the 
rough  practice  many  refinements  of  the  literary 
theory."  ^  It  is,  therefore,  the  difficult  task  of 
one  who  would  now  write  at  once  practically  and 
critically  of  our  national  government  to  escape 
from  theories  and  attach  himself  to  facts,  not  al- 
lowing himself  to  be  confused  by  a  knowledge 
of  what  that  government  was  intended  to  be,  or 
led  away  into  conjectures  as  to  what  it  may  one 
day  become,  but  striving  to  catch  its  present 
phases  and  to  photograph  the  delicate  organism 
in  all  its  characteristic  parts  exactly  as  it  is  to- 
day ;  an  undertaking  all  the  more  arduous  and 
doubtful  of  issue  because  it  has  to  be  entered 
upon  without  guidance  from  writers  of  acknowl- 
edged authority. 

The  leading  inquiry  in  the  examination  of  any 
system  of  government  must,  of  course,  concern 
primarily  the  real  depositaries  and  the  essential 
machinery  of  power.  There  is  always  a  centre 
of  power :  where  in  this  system  is  that  centre  ? 
in  whose  hands  is  self-sufficient  authority  lodged, 

1  These  are  Mr.  Bagehot's  words  with  reference  to  the 
British  constitutional  system.  See  his  English  Constilution 
(last  American  edition),  p.  69. 


INTRODUCTORY.  11 

and  through  what  agencies  does  that  authority 
speak  and  act  ?  The  answers  one  gets  to  these 
and  kindred  questions  from  authoritative  manuals 
of  constitutional  exposition  are  not  satisfactory, 
chiefly  because  they  are  contradicted  by  self- 
evident  facts.  It  is  said  that  there  is  no  single 
or  central  force  in  our  federal  scheme ;  and  so 
there  is  not  in  the  federal  scheme.,  but  only  a 
balance  of  powers  and  a  nice  adjustment  of  in- 
teractive checks,  as  all  the  books  say.  How  is  it, 
however,  in  the  practical  conduct  of  the  federal 
government?  In  that,  unquestionably,  the  pre- 
dominant and  controlling  force,  the  centre  and 
source  of  all  motive  and  of  all  regulative  power, 
is  Congress.  All  niceties  of  constitutional  re- 
striction and  even  many  broad  principles  of  con- 
stitutional limitation  have  been  overridden,  and 
a  thoroughly  organized  system  of  congressional 
control  set  up  which  gives  a  very  rude  negative 
to  some  theories  of  balance  and  some  schemes 
for  distributed  powers,  but  which  suits  well  with 
convenience,  and  does  violence  to  none  of  the 
principles  of  self-government  contained  in  the 
Constitution. 

This  fact,  however,  though  evident  enough,  is 
not  on  the  surface.  It  does  not  obtrude  itself 
upon  the  observation  of  the  world.  It  runs 
through  the  imdercurrents  of  government,  and 
takes  shape  only  in  the  inner  channels  of  legisla* 


12  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

Hon  and  administration  which  are  not  open  to 
the  common  view.  It  can  be  discerned  most 
readily  by  comparing  the  "  literary  theory  "  of 
the  Constitution  with  the  actual  machinery  of 
legislation,  especially  at  those  points  where  that 
machinery  regulates  the  relations  of  Congress 
with  the  executive  departments,  and  with  the  at- 
titude of  the  houses  towards  the  Supreme  Court 
on  those  occasions,  happily  not  numerous,  when 
legislature  and  judiciary  have  come  face  to  face 
in  direct  antagonism.  The  "  literary  theory  "  is 
distinct  enough ;  every  American  is  familiar  with 
the  paper  pictures  of  the  Constitution.  Most 
prominent  in  such  pictures  are  the  ideal  checks 
and  balances  of  the  federal  system,  which  may 
be  found  described,  even  in  the  most  recent 
books,  in  terms  substantially  the  same  as  those 
used  in  1814  by  John  Adams  in  his  letter  to 
John  Taylor.  "  Is  there,"  says  Mr.  Adams,  "  a 
constitution  upon  record  more  complicated  with 
balances  than  ours  ?  In  the  first  place,  eighteen 
states  and  some  territories  are  balanced  against 
the  national  government.  ...  In  the  second 
place,  the  House  of  Representatives  is  balanced 
against  the  Senate,  the  Senate  against  the  House. 
In  the  third  place,  the  executive  authority  is,  in 
some  degree,  balanced  against  the  legislative. 
In  the  fourth  place,  the  judicial  power  is  bal- 
anced against  the  House,  the  Senate,  the  execu- 


INTRODUCTORY.  13 

tive  power,  and  the  state  governments.  In  the 
fifth  place,  the  Senate  is  balanced  against  the 
President  in  all  appointments  to  office,  and  in 
all  treaties.  ...  In  the  sixth  place,  the  people 
hold  in  their  hands  the  balance  against  their 
own  representatives,  by  biennial  .  .  .  elections. 
In  the  seventh  place,  the  legislatures  of  the 
several  states  are  balanced  against  the  Senate 
by  sextennial  elections.  In  the  eighth  place,  the 
electors  are  balanced  against  the  people  in  the 
choice  of  the  President.  Here  is  a  complicated 
refinement  of  balances,  which,  for  anything  I 
recollect,  is  an  invention  of  our  own  and  pecul- 
iar to  us."  1 

All  of  these  balances  are  reckoned  essential 
in  the  theory  of  the  Constitution ;  but  none  is  so 
quintessential  as  that  between  the  national  and 
the  state  governments ;  it  is  the  pivotal  quality 
of  the  system,  indicating  its  principal,  which  is 
its  federal  characteristic.  The  object  of  this 
balance  of  thirty-eight  States  "  and  some  terri- 
tories "  against  the  powers  of  the  federal  govern- 
ment, as  also  of  several  of  the  other  balances 
enrmaerated,  is  not,  it  should  be  observed,  to 
prevent  the  invasion  by  the  national  authorities 

1  Works,  vol.  vi.,  p.  467  :  "  Letter  to  Jno.  Taylor."  The  words 
and  sentences  omitted  in  the  quotation  contain  Mr.  Adams's 
opiuions  as  to  the  value  of  the  several  balances,  some  of  which 
h^  thinks  of  doubtful  utility,  and  others  of  which  he,  without 
lievilUition,  pronounces  altogether  pemicioas. 


14  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

of  those  provinces  of  legislation  by  plain  ex 
pression  or  implication  reserved  to  the  States,  — 
such  as  the  regulation  of  municipal  institutions, 
the  punishment  of  ordinary  crimes,  the  enacts 
ment  of  laws  of  inheritance  and  of  contract. 
the  erection  and  maintenance  of  the  common 
machinery  of  education,  and  the  control  of  other 
such  like  matters  of  social  economy  and  every-day 
administration,  —  but  to  check  and  trim  national 
policy  on  national  questions,  to  turn  Congi-ess 
back  from  paths  of  dangerous  encroachment  on 
middle  or  doubtful  grounds  of  jurisdiction,  to 
keep  sharp,  when  it  was  like  to  become  dim,  the 
line  of  demarcation  between  state  and  federal 
privilege,  to  readjust  the  weights  of  jurisdiction 
whenever  either  state  or  federal  scale  threatened 
to  kick  the  beam.  There  never  was  any  great 
likelihood  that  the  national  government  would 
care  to  take  from  the  States  their  plainer  pre- 
rogatives, but  there  was  always  a  violent  proba- 
bility that  it  would  here  and  there  steal  a  march 
over  the  borders  where  territory  like  its  own 
invited  it  to  appropriation;  and  it  was  for  a 
mutual  defense  of  such  border-land  that  the  two 
governments  were  given  the  right  to  call  a  halt 
upon  one  another.  It  was  purposed  to  guard 
not  against  revolution,  but  against  unrestrained 
exercise  of  questionable  powers. 

The  extent  to  which  the  restraining  power  of 


INTRODUCTORY.  16 

the  States  was  relied  upon  in  the  days  of  the 
Convention,  and  of  the  adoption  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, is  strikingly  illustrated  in  several  of  the  best 
known  papers  of  the  "  Federalist ; "  and  there 
is  no  better  means  of  realizing  the  difference 
between  the  actual  and  the  ideal  constitutions 
than  this  of  placing  one's  self  at  the  point  of 
view  of  the  public  men  of  1787-89.  They  were 
disgusted  with  the  impotent  and  pitiable  Con- 
federation, which  could  do  nothing  but  beg  and 
deliberate  ;  they  longed  to  get  away  from  the 
selfish  feuds  of  "  States  dissevered,  discordant, 
belligerent,"  and  their  hopes  were  centred  in  the 
establishment  of  a  strong  and  lasting  union, 
such  as  could  secure  that  concert  and  facility  of 
common  action  in  which  alone  there  could  be 
security  and  amity.  They  were,  however,  by 
no  means  sure  of  being  able  to  realize  their 
hopes,  contrive  how  they  might  to  bring  the 
States  together  into  a  more  perfect  confedera- 
tion. The  late  colonies  had  but  recently  become 
compactly  organized,  self-governing  States,  and 
were  standing  somewhat  stiffly  apart,  a  group 
of  consequential  sovereignties,  jealous  to  main- 
tain their  blood-bought  prerogatives,  and  quick 
to  distrust  any  power  set  above  them,  or  arro- 
gating to  itself  the  control  of  their  restive  wills. 
It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  the  sturdy,  self- 
reliant,  masterfid  men  who  had  won  independ- 


16  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

ence  for  their  native  colonies,  by  passing  through 
the  flames  of  battle,  and  through  the  equally 
fierce  fires  of  bereavement  and  financial  ruin, 
would  readily  transfer  their  affection  and  alle- 
giance from  the  new-made  States,  which  were 
their  homes,  to  the  federal  government,  which 
was  to  be  a  mere  artificial  creation,  and  which 
could  be  to  no  man  as  his  home  government. 
As  things  looked  then,  it  seemed  idle  to  appre- 
hend a  too  great  diminution  of  state  rights : 
there  was  every  reason,  on  the  contrary,  to  fear 
that  any  union  that  could  be  agreed  upon  would 
lack  both  vitality  and  the  ability  to  hold  its 
ground  against  the  jealous  self-assertion  of  the 
sovereign  commonwealths  of  its  membership. 
Hamilton  but  spoke  the  common  belief  of  all 
thinking:  men  of  the  time  when  he  said :  "  It 
will  always  be  far  more  easy  for  the  state  gov- 
ernments to  encroach  upon  the  national  author- 
ities than  for  the  national  government  to  en- 
croach upon  the  state  authorities ; "  and  he 
seemed  to  furnish  abundant  support  for  the 
opinion,  when  he  added,  that  "  the  proof  of  this 
proposition  turns  upon  the  greater  degree  of  in- 
fluence which  the  state  governments,  if  they  ad- 
minister their  affairs  uprightly  and  prudently, 
will  generally  possess  over  the  people ;  a  cir- 
cumstance which,  at  the  same  time,  teaches  us 
that  there  is  an  inherent  and  intrinsic  weakness 


INTRODUCTORY.  17 

in  all  federal  constitutions,  and  that  too  much 
pains  cannot  be  taken  in  their  organization  to 
give  them  all  the  force  that  is  compatible  with 
the  principles  of  liberty."  ^ 

Read  in  the  light  of  the  present  day,  such 
views  constitute  the  most  striking  of  all  com- 
mentaries upon  our  constitutional  history.  Mani- 
festly the  powers  reserved  to  the  States  were  ex- 
pected to  serve  as  a  very  real  and  potent  check 
upon  the  federal  government;  and  yet  we  can 
see  plainly  enough  now  that  this  balance  of  state 
against  national  authorities  has  proved,  of  all 
constitutional  checks,  the  least  effectual.  The 
proof  of  the  pudding  is  the  eating  thereof,  and 
we  can  nowadays  detect  in  it  none  of  that 
strong  flavor  of  state  sovereignty  which  its  cooks 
thought  they  were  giving  it.  It  smacks,  rather, 
of  federal  omnipotence,  which  they  thought  to 
mix  in  only  in  very  small  and  judicious  quanti- 
ties. "  From  the  nature  of  the  case,"  as  Judge 
Cooley  says,  "  it  was  impossible  that  the  powers 
reserved  to  the  States  should  constitute  a  re- 
straint upon  the  increase  of  federal  power,  to 
the  extent  that  was  at  first  expected.  The  fed- 
eral government  was  necessarily  made  the  final 
judge  of  its  own  authority,  and  the  executor  oi 
its  own  will,  and  any  effectual  check  to  the  grad' 
ual  amplification  of  its  jurisdiction  must  there- 

1  Federalist,  No.  17. 
3 


18  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

fore  be  found  in  the  construction  put  by  those 
administering  it  upon  the  grants  of  the  Consti- 
tution, and  in  their  own  sense  of  constitutional 
obligation.  And  as  the  true  line  of  division  be- 
tween federal  and  state  powers  has,  from  the 
very  beginning,  been  the  subject  of  contention 
and  of  honest  differences  of  opinion,  it  must 
often  happen  that  to  advance  and  occupy  some 
disputed  ground  will  seem  to  the  party  having 
the  power  to  do  so  a  mere  matter  of  constitu- 
tional duty."  ^ 

During  the  early  years  of  the  new  national 
government  there  was,  doubtless,  much  potency 
in  state  will ;  and  had  federal  and  state  powers 
then  come  face  to  face,  before  Congress  and  the 
President  had  had  tiriie  to  overcome  their  first 
awkwardness  and  timidity,  and  to  discover  the 
safest  walks  of  their  authority  and  the  most  ef- 
fectual means  of  exercising  their  power,  it  is 
probable  that  state  prerogatives  would  have  pre- 
vailed. The  central  government,  as  every  one 
remembers,  did  not  at  first  give  promise  of  a 
very  great  career.  It  had  inherited  some  of 
the  contempt  which  had  attached  to  the  weak 
Congress  of  the  Confederation.  Two  of  the 
thirteen  States  held  aloof  from  the  Union  until 
they  could  be  assured  of  its  stability  and  sue- 
cess ;  many  of  the  other  States  had  come  into 
1  Cooley's  Principles  of  Const.  Law,  p.  143. 


INTRODUCTORT.  19 

it  reluctantly,  all  with  a  keen  sense  of  sacrifice, 
and  there  could  not  be  said  to  be  any  very  wide- 
spread or  undoubting  belief  in  its  ultimate  sur- 
vival. The  members  of  the  first  Congress,  too, 
came  together  very  tardily,  and  in  no  very  cor- 
dial or  confident  spirit  of  cooperation ;  and  after 
they  had  assembled  they  were  for  many  months 
painfully  embarrassed,  how  and  upon  what  sub- 
jects to  exercise  their  new  and  untried  func- 
tions. The  President  was  denied  formal  prece- 
dence in  dignity  by  the  Governor  of  New  York, 
and  must  himself  have  felt  inclined  to  question 
the  consequence  of  his  official  station,  when  he 
found  that  amongst  the  principal  questions  with 
which  he  had  to  deal  were  some  which  concerned 
no  greater  things  than  petty  points  of  etiquette 
and  ceremonial;  as,  for  example,  whether  one 
day  in  the  week  would  be  sufficient  to  receive 
visits  of  compliment,  "  and  what  would  be  said 
if  he  were  sometimes  to  be  seen  at  quiet  tea- 
parties."  ^  But  this  first  weakness  of  the  new 
government  was  only  a  transient  phase  in  its 
history,  and  the  federal  authorities  did  not  in- 
vite a  direct  issue  with  the  States  until  they  had 
had  time  to  reckon  their  resources  and  to  learn 
facility  of  action.  Before  Washington  left  the 
presidential  chair  the  federal  government  had 
been  thoroughly  organized,  and  it  fast  gathered 

1  McMaster,  Hist,  of  the  People  of  the  U,  S.,  vol.  i.,  p.  564. 


20  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

strength  and  confidence  as  it  addressed  itself 
year  after  year  to  the  adjustment  of  foreign  re- 
lations, to  the  defense  of  the  western  frontiers, 
and  to  the  maintenance  of  domestic  peace.  For 
twenty-five  years  it  had  no  chance  to  think  of 
those  questions  of  internal  policy  which,  in  later 
days,  were  to  tempt  it  to  stretch  its  constitu- 
tional jurisdiction.  The  establishment  of  the 
public  credit,  the  revival  of  commerce,  and  the 
encouragement  of  industry ;  the  conduct,  first,  of 
a  heated  controversy,  and  finally  of  an  unequal 
war  with  England;  the  avoidance,  first,  of  too 
much  love,  and  afterwards  of  too  violent  hatred 
of  France ;  these  and  other  like  questions  of 
great  pith  and  moment  gave  it  too  much  to  do 
to  leave  it  time  to  think  of  nice  points  of  con- 
stitutional theory  affecting  its  relations  with  the 
States. 

But  still,  even  in  those  busy  times  of  inter- 
national controversy,  when  the  lurid  light  of  the 
French  Revolution  outshone  all  others,  and  when 
men's  minds  were  full  of  those  ghosts  of  '76, 
which  took  the  shape  of  British  aggressions,  and 
could  not  be  laid  by  any  charm  known  to  diplo- 
macy, —  even  in  those  times,  busy  about  other 
things,  there  had  been  premonitions  of  the  un- 
equal contest  between  state  and  federal  authori- 
ties. The  purchase  of  Louisiana  had  given  new 
form  and  startling  significance  to  the  assertion 


INTRODUCTORY.  21 

of  national  sovereignty,  the  Alien  and  Sedition 
Laws  had  provoked  the  plain-spoken  and  em- 
phatic protests  of  Kentucky  and  Virginia,  and 
the  Embargo  had  exasperated  New  England  to 
threats  of  secession. 

Nor  were  these  open  assumptions  of  question- 
able prerogatives  on  the  part  of  the  national 
government  the  most  significant  or  unequivocal 
indications  of  an  assured  increase  of  federal 
power.  Hamilton,  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
had  taken  care  at  the  very  beginning  to  set  the 
national  policy  in  ways  which  would  unavoida- 
bly lead  to  an  almost  indefinite  expansion  of  the 
sphere  of  federal  legislation.  Sensible  of  its 
need  of  guidance  in  those  matters  of  financial 
administration  which  evidently  demanded  its 
immediate  attention,  the  first  Congress  of  the 
Union  promptly  put  itself  under  the  direction  of 
Hamilton.  "  It  is  not  a  little  amusing,"  says  Mr. 
Lodge,  "to  note  how  eagerly  Congress,  which 
had  been  ably  and  honestly  struggling  with  the 
revenue,  with  commerce,  and  with  a  thousand  de- 
tails, fettered  in  all  things  by  the  awkwardness 
inherent  in  a  legislative  body,  turned  for  relief 
to  the  new  secretary."  ^  His  advice  was  asked 
and  taken  in  almost  everything,  and  his  skill  as 
a  party  leader  made  easy  many  of  the  more  dif- 
ficult paths  of  the  new  government.  But  no 
^  Lodge's  Alexander  Hamilton  (Am.  Statesmen  Series),  p.  85. 


22  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

sooner  liad  the  powers  of  that  government  begun 
to  be  exercised  under  his  guidance  than  they  be- 
gan CO  g^ow.  In  his  famous  Report  on  Manu- 
factures were  laid  the  foundations  of  that  sys- 
tem of  protective  duties  which  was  destined  to 
hang  all  the  industries  of  the  country  upon  the 
skirts  of  the  federal  power,  and  to  make  every 
trade  and  craft  in  the  land  sensitive  to  every 
wind  of  party  that  might  blow  at  Washington ; 
and  in  his  equally  celebrated  Report  in  favor  of 
the  establishment  of  a  National  Bank,  there  was 
called  into  requisition,  for  the  first  time,  that 
puissant  doctrine  of  the  "  implied  powers "  of 
the  Constitution  which  has  ever  since  been  the 
chief  dynamic  principle  in  our  constitutional 
history.  "  This  great  doctrine,  embodying  the 
principle  of  liberal  construction,  was,"  in  the 
language  of  Mr.  Lodge,  "  the  most  formidable 
weapon  in  the  armory  of  the  Constitution  ;  and 
when  Hamilton  grasped  it  he  knew,  and  his  op- 
ponents felt,  that  here  was  something  capable  of 
conferring  on  the  federal  government  powers  of 
almost  any  extent."  ^  It  served  first  as  a  sanc- 
tion for  the  charter  of  the  United  States  Bank, 
—  an  institution  which  was  the  central  pillar  oi 
Hamilton's  wonderful  financial  administration, 
and  around  which  afterwards,  as  then,  played  so 
many  of  the  lightnings  of  party  strife.  But  the 
1  Lodge's  ALxander  Hamilton,  p.  105. 


INTRODUCTORY.  23 

Bank  of  the  United  States,  though  great,  was 
not  the  greatest  of  the  creations  of  that  lusty 
and  seductive  doctrine.  Given  out,  at  length, 
with  the  sanction  of  the  federal  Supreme  Court,^ 
and  containing,  as  it  did,  in  its  manifest  char- 
acter as  a  doctrine  of  legislative  prerogative,  a 
very  vigorous  principle  of  constitutional  growth, 
it  quickly  constituted  Congress  the  dominant, 
nay,  the  irresistible,  power  of  the  federal  system, 
relegating  some  of  the  chief  balances  of  the  Con- 
stitution to  an  insignificant  r81e  in  the  "  literary 
theory  "  of  our  institutions. 

Its  effect  upon  the  status  of  the  States  in  the 
federal  system  was  several-fold.  In  the  first 
place,  it  clearly  put  the  constitutions  of  the 
States  at  a  great  disadvantage,  inasmuch  as  there 
was  in  them  no  like  principle  of  growth.  Their 
stationary  sovereignty  could  by  no  means  keep 
pace  with  the  nimble  progress  of  federal  influ- 
ence in  the  new  spheres  thus  opened  up  to  it. 
The  doctrine  of  implied  powers  was  evidently 
both  facile  and  irresistible.  It  concerned  the 
political  discretion  of  the  national  legislative 
power,  and  could,  therefore,  elude  all  obstacles 
of  judicial  interference  ;  for  the  Supreme  Court 
very  early  declared  itself  without  authority  to 
question  the  legislature's  privilege  of  determin- 

^  Its  final  and  most  masterly  exposition,  by  C.  J.  Marshall, 
Xa&j  be  seen  in  McCuUoch  v.  Maryland,  4  Wheaton,  316. 


24  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

ing  the  nature  and  extent  of  its  own  powers  in 
the  choice  of  means  for  giving  effect  to  its  con- 
stitutional prerogatives,  and  it  has  long  stood  as 
an  accepted  canon  of  judicial  action,  that  judges 
should  be  very  slow  to  oppose  their  opinions  to 
the  legislative  will  in  cases  in  which  it  is  not 
made  demonstrably  clear  that  there  has  been  a 
plain  violation  of  some  unquestionable  constitu- 
tional principle,  or  some  explicit  constitutional 
provision.  Of  encroachments  upon  state  as  well 
as  of  encroachments  upon  federal  powers,  the 
federal  authorities  are,  however,  in  most  cases 
the  only,  and  in  all  cases  the  final,  judges.  The 
States  are  absolutely  debarred  even  from  any 
effective  defense  of  their  plain  prerogatives,  be- 
cause not  they,  but  the  national  authorities,  are 
commissioned  to  determine  with  decisive  and  un- 
challenged authoritativeness  what  state  powers 
shall  be  recognized  in  each  case  of  contest  or  of 
conflict.  In  short,  one  of  the  privileges  which 
the  States  have  resigned  into  the  hands  of  the 
federal  government  is  the  all-inclusive  privilege 
of  determining  what  they  themselves  can  do. 
Federal  courts  can  annul  state  action,  but  state 
courts  cannot  arrest  the  growth  of  congressional 
power.^ 

1  The  following  passage  from  "William  Maclay's  Sketches  of 
Debate  in  the  First  Senate  of  the  United  States  (pp.  292-3)  il- 
lustrates how  clearly  the  results  of  this  were  forecast  by  sag* 


INTRODUCTORY.  25 

But  this  is  only  the  doctrinal  side  of  the  case, 
simply  its  statement  with  an  "  if  "  and  a  "  but." 
Its  practical  issue  illustrates  still  more  forcibly 
the  altered  and  declining  status  of  the  States  in 
the  constitutional  system.  One  very  practical 
issue  has  been  to  bring  the  power  of  the  federal 
government  home  to  every  man's  door,  as,  no 
less  than  his  own  state  government,  his  imme- 
diate over-lord.  Of  course  every  new  province 
into  which  Congress  has  been  allured  by  the 
principle  of  implied  powers  has  required  for  its 
administration  a  greater  or  less  enlargement  of 
the  national  civil  service,  which  now,  through  its 
hundred  thousand  officers,  carries  into  every 
community  of  the  land  a  sense  of  federal  power, 

cious  men  from  the  first :  "  The  system  laid  down  by  these 
gentlemen  (the  Federalists)  was  as  follows,  or  rather  the  de- 
velopment of  the  designs  of  a  certain  party :  The  general 
power  to  carry  the  Constitution  into  effect  by  a  constructive 
interpretation  would  extend  to  every  case  that  Congress  may 
deem  necessary  or  expedient.  .  .  .  The  laws  of  the  United 
States  will  be  held  paramount  to  all "  state  "  laws,  claims, 
and  even  constitutions.  The  supreme  power  is  with  the  gen- 
eral government  to  decide  in  this,  as  in  everything  else,  for 
the  States  have  neglected  to  secure  any  umpire  or  mode  of 
decision  in  case  of  difference  between  them.  Nor  is  there 
any  point  in  the  Constitution  for  them  to  rally  under.  They 
may  give  an  opinion,  but  the  opinions  of  the  general  govern- 
ment must  prevail.  .  .  .  Any  direct  and  open  act  would  be 
termed  usurpatiou.  But  whether  the  gradual  influence  and 
encroachments  of  the  general  government  may  not  gradually 
swallow  up  the  state  gove'-nments,  is  another  matter." 


26  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

as  the  power  of  powers,  and  fixes  the  federal 
authority,  as  it  were,  in  the  very  habits  of  soci- 
ety. That  is  not  a  foreign  but  a  familiar  and 
domestic  government  whose  officer  is  your  next- 
door  neighbor,  whose  representatives  you  deal 
with  every  day  at  the  post-office  and  the  custom- 
house, whose  courts  sit  in  your  own  State,  and 
send  their  own  marshals  into  your  own  county 
to  arrest  your  own  fellow-townsman,  or  to  call 
you  yourself  by  writ  to  their  witness-stands. 
And  who  can  help  respecting  officials  whom  he 
knows  to  be  backed  by  the  authority  and  even 
by  the  power  of  the  whole  nation,  in  the  per- 
formance of  the  duties  in  which  he  sees  them 
every  day  engaged?  Who  does  not  feel  that 
the  marshal  represents  a  greater  power  than  the 
sheriff  does,  and  that  it  is  more  dangerous  to 
molest  a  mail-carrier  than  to  knock  down  a 
policeman  ?  This  personal  contact  of  every  cit- 
izen with  the  federal  government,  —  a  contact 
which  makes  him  feel  himseK  a  citizen  of  a 
greater  state  than  that  which  controls  his  every- 
day contracts  and  probates  his  father's  will, — 
more  than  offsets  his  sense  of  dependent  loyalty 
to  local  authorities  by  creating  a  sensible  bond 
of  allegiance  to  what  presents  itself  unmistaka- 
bly as  the  greater  and  more  sovereign  power. 

In  most  things  this  bond  of  allegiance  does 
not  bind  him  oppressively  nor  chafe  him  dis- 


INTRODUCTORY.  27 

tressingly ;  but  in  some  things  it  is  drawn  rather 
painfully  tight.  Whilst  federal  postmasters  are 
valued  and  federal  judges  unhesitatingly  obeyed, 
and  whilst  very  few  people  realize  the  weight  of 
customs- duties,  and  as  few,  perhaps,  begrudge 
license  taxes  on  whiskey  and  tobacco,  everybody 
eyes  rather  uneasily  the  federal  supervisors  at 
the  polls.  This  is  preeminently  a  country  of 
frequent  elections,  and  few  States  care  to  increase 
the  frequency  by  separating  elections  of  state 
from  elections  of  national  functionaries.  The 
federal  supervisor,  consequently,  who  oversees 
the  balloting  for  congressmen,  practically  super- 
intends the  election  of  state  officers  also ;  for  state 
officers  and  congressmen  are  usually  voted  for 
at  one  and  the  same  time  and  place,  by  ballots 
bearing  in  common  an  entire  "party  ticket;" 
and  any  authoritative  scrutiny  of  these  ballots 
after  they  have  been  cast,  or  any  peremptory 
power  of  challenging  those  who  offer  to  cast 
them,  must  operate  aS  an  interference  with  state 
no  less  than  with  federal  elections.  The  author- 
ity of  Congress  to  regulate  the  manner  of  choos- 
ing federal  representatives  pinches  when  it  is 
made  thus  to  include  also  the  supervision  of 
those  state  elections  which  are,  by  no  implied 
power  even,  within  the  sphere  of  federal  prerog- 
ative. The  supervisor  represents  the  very  ugliest 
side  of  federal  supremacy ;  he  belongs  to  the 


28  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

least  liked  branch  of  the  civil  service ;  but  his 
existence  speaks  very  clearly  as  to  the  present 
balance  of  powers,  and  his  rather  hateful  privi- 
leges must,  under  the  present  system  of  mixed 
elections,  result  in  impairing  the  seK- respect 
of  state  officers  of  election  by  bringing  home 
to  them  a  vivid  sense  of  subordination  to  the 
powers  at  Washington. 

A  very  different  and  much  larger  side  of 
federal  predominance  is  to  be  seen  in  the  history 
of  the  policy  of  internal  improvements.  I  need 
not  expound  that  policy  here.  It  has  been  often 
enough  mooted  and  long  enough  understood  to 
need  no  explanation.  Its  practice  is  plain  and 
its  persistence  unquestionable.  But  its  bearings 
upon  the  status  and  the  policies  of  the  States 
are  not  always  clearly  seen  or  often  distinctly 
pointed  out.  Its  chief  results,  of  course,  have 
been  that  expansion  of  national  functions  which 
was  necessarily  involved  in  the  application  of 
national  funds  by  national  employees  to  the  clear- 
ing of  inland  water-courses  and  the  improvement 
of  harbors,  and  the  establishment  of  the  very 
questionable  precedent  of  expending  in  favored 
localities  moneys  raised  by  taxation  which  bears 
with  equal  incidence  upon  the  people  of  all  sec- 
tions of  the  country ;  but  these  chief  results  by 
no  means  constitute  the  sum  of  its  influence. 
Hardly  less  significant  and  real,  for  instance,  are 


INTRODUCTORY.  29 

its  moral  effects  in  rendering  state  administra- 
tions less  self-reliant  and  efficient,  less  prudent 
and  thrifty,  by  accustoming  them  to  accepting 
subsidies  for  internal  improvements  from  the 
federal  coffers ;  to  depending  upon  the  national 
revenues,  rather  than  'upon  their  own  energy  and 
enterprise,  for  means  of  developing  those  re- 
sources which  it  should  be  the  special  province 
of  state  administration  to  make  available  and 
profitable.  There  can,  I  suppose,  be  little  doubt 
that  it  is  due  to  the  moral  influences  of  this 
policy  that  the  States  are  now  turning  to  the 
common  government  for  aid  in  such  things  as 
education.  Expecting  to  be  helped,  they  will 
not  help  themselves.  Certain  it  is  that  there  is 
more  than  one  State  which,  though  abundantly 
able  to  pay  for  an  educational  system  of  the 
greatest  efficiency,  fails  to  do  so,  and  contents 
itself  with  imperfect  temporary  makeshifts  be- 
cause there  are  immense  surpluses  every  year 
in  the  national  treasury  which,  rumor  and  unau- 
thorized promises  say,  may  be  distributed  amongst 
the  States  in  aid  of  education.  If  the  federal 
government  were  more  careful  to  keep  apart 
from  every  strictly  local  scheme  of  improvement, 
this  culpable  and  demoralizing  state  policy  could 
scarcely  live.  States  would  cease  to  wish,  because 
they  would  cease  to  hope,  to  be  stipendiaries 
of  the  government  of  the  Uniojj,  and  would  ad- 


80  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

dress  themselves  with  diligence  to  their  proper 
duties,  with  much  benefit  both  to  themselves  and 
to  the  federal  system.  This  is  not  saying  that 
the  policy  of  internal  improvements  was  either 
avoidable,  unconstitutional,  or  unwise,  but  only 
that  it  has  been  carried  too  far ;  and  that, 
whether  carried  too  far  or  not,  it  must  in  any 
ease  have  been  what  it  is  now  seen  to  be,  a  big 
weight  in  the  federal  scale  of  the  balance. 

StiU  other  powers  of  the  federal  government, 
which  have  so  grown  beyond  their  first  propor- 
tions as  to  have  marred  very  seriously  the  sym- 
metry of  the  "  literary  theory "  of  our  federal 
system,  have  strengthened  under  the  shadow  of 
the  jurisdiction  of  Congress  over  commerce  and 
the  maintenance  of  the  postal  service.  For  in- 
stance, the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
has  declared  that  the  powers  granted  to  Congress 
by  the  Constitution  to  regulate  commerce  and  to 
establish  post-offices  and  post-roads  "  keep  pace 
with  the  progress  of  the  country  and  adapt  them- 
selves to  new  developments  of  times  and  circum- 
stances. They  extend  from  the  horse  with  its 
rider  to  the  stage-coach,  from  the  sailing  vessel 
to  the  steamer,  from  the  coach  and  the  steamer 
to  the  railroad,  and  from  the  railroad  to  the 
telegraph,  as  these  new  agencies  are  successively 
brouffht  into  use  to  meet  the  demands  of  increas- 
ing  popidation  and  wealth.     They  are  intended 


INTRODUCTORY.  81 

for  the  government  of  the  business  to  which  they 
relate,  at  all  times  and  under  all  circumstances. 
As  they  were  intrusted  to  the  general  govern- 
ment for  the  good  of  the  nation,  it  is  not  only 
the  right  but  the  duty  of  Congress  to  see  to  it 
that  the  intercourse  between  the  States  and  the 
transmission  of  intelligence  are  not  obstructed  or 
unnecessarily  encumbered  by  state  legislation."  ^ 
This  emphatic  decision  was  intended  to  sustain 
the  right  of  a  telegraph  company  chartered  by 
one  State  to  run  its  line  along  all  post-roads  in 
other  States,  without  the  consent  of  those  States, 
and  even  against  their  will ;  but  it  is  manifest 
that  many  other  corporate  companies  might, 
under  the  sanction  of  this  broad  opinion,  claim 
similar  privileges  in  despite  of  state  resistance, 
and  that  such  decisions  go  far  towards  making 
state  powers  of  incorporation  of  little  worth  as 
compared  with  federal  powers  of  control. 

Keeping  pace,  too,  with  this  growth  of  federal 
activity,  there  has  been  from  the  first  a  steady 
and  immistakable  growth  of  nationality  of  senti- 
ment. It  was,  of  course,  the  weight  of  war 
which  finally  and  decisively  disarranged  the  bal- 
ance between  state  and  federal  powers ;  and  it 
is  obvious  that  many  of  the  most  striking  mani- 
festations of  the  tendency  towards  centralization 

1  Pensacola  TeL  Co.  v.  "West.  Union,  96  U.  S.  1 ,  9.  ( Quoted 
by  Judge  Cooley  in  his  Principles  of  Constitutional  Law.) 


82  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

have  made  themselves  seen  since  the  war.  But 
the  history  of  the  war  is  only  a  record  of  the  tri- 
umph of  the  principle  of  national  sovereignty. 
The  war  was  inevitable,  because  that  principle 
grew  apace ;  and  the  war  ended  as  it  did,  because 
that  principle  had  become  predominant.  Ac- 
cepted at  first  simply  because  it  was  impera- 
tively necessary,  the  union  of  form  and  of  law 
had  become  a  union  of  sentiment,  and  was  des- 
tined to  be  a  union  of  institutions.  That  sense 
of  national  unity  and  community  of  destiny 
which  Hamilton  had  sought  to  foster,  but  which 
was  feeble  in  his  day  of  long  distances  and  tardy 
inter  -  communication,  when  the  nation's  pulse 
was  as  slow  as  the  stage-coach  and  the  postman, 
had  become  strong  enough  to  rule  the  conti- 
nent when  Webster  died.  The  war  between  the 
States  was  the  supreme  and  final  struggle  be- 
tween those  forces  of  disintegration  which  still 
remained  in  the  blood  of  the  body  politic  and 
those  other  forces  of  health,  of  union  and  amal- 
gamation, which  had  been  gradually  building  up 
that  body  in  vigor  and  strength  as  the  system 
passed  from  youth  to  maturity,  and  as  its  consti- 
tution hardened  and  ripened  with  advancing  age. 
The  history  of  that  trenchant  policy  of  "  recon- 
struction," which  followed  close  upon  the  termi- 
nation of  the  war,  as  at  once  its  logical  result 
^nd  significant  commentary,   contains   a  vivid 


INTRODUCTORY.  33 

picture  of  the  altered  balances  of  the  constitu- 
tional system  which  is  a  sort  of  exaggerated 
miniature,  falling  very  little  short  of  being  a 
caricature,  of  previous  constitutional  tendencies 
and  federal  policies.  The  tide  of  federal  ag- 
gression probably  reached  its  highest  shore  in 
the  legislation  which  put  it  into  the  power  of  the 
federal  courts  to  punish  a  state  judge  for  re- 
fusing, in  the  exercise  of  his  official  discretion, 
to  impanel  negroes  in  the  juries  of  his  court,^ 
and  in  those  statutes  which  gave  the  federal 
courts  jurisdiction  over  offenses  against  state 
laws  by  state  officers.^  But  that  tide  has  often 
run  very  high,  and,  however  fluctuating  at  times, 
has  long  been  well-nigh  irresistible  by  any  dykes 
of  constitutional  state  privilege;  so  that  Judge 
Cooley  can  say  without  fear  of  contradiction  that 
*'The  effectual  checks  upon  the  encroachments 
of  federal  upon  state  power  must  be  looked  for, 

1  18  Stat.,  part  3,  336.     See  Ex  parte  Virginia,  100  U.  S. 
S39. 

*  Sect.  f>b\b  Rev.  Stats.  See  Ex  parte  Siebold,  100  U.  S. 
371.  Equally  extensive  of  federal  powers  is  that  "  legal  ten- 
der" decision  (Juilliard  v.  Greenman)  of  March,  1884,  which 
argues  the  existence  of  a  right  to  issue  an  irredeemable  paper 
currency  from  the  Constitution's  grant  of  other  rights  charac- 
teristic of  sovereignty,  and  from  the  possession  of  a  similar 
right  by  other  governments.  But  this  involves  no  restriction 
of  state  powers ;  and  perhaps  there  ought  to  be  offset  against 
it  that  other  decision  (several  cases,  October,  1883),  which  Av 
nies  constitutional  sanction  to  the  Civil  Rights  Act. 
8 


84  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

not  in  state  power  of  resistance,  but  in  the 
choice  of  representatives,  senators,  and  presidents 
holding  just  constitutional  views,  and  in  a  federal 
supreme  court  with  competent  power  to  restrain 
all  departments  and  all  officers  within  the  limits 
of  their  just  authority,  so  far  as  their  acts  may 
become  the  subject  of  judicial  cognizance."  ^ 

Indeed  it  is  quite  evident  that  if  federal  power 
be  not  altogether  irresponsible,  it  is  the  federal 
judiciary  which  is  the  only  effectual  balance- 
wheel  of  the  whole  system.  The  federal  judges 
hold  in  their  hands  the  fate  of  state  powers,  and 
theirs  is  the  only  authority  that  can  draw  effec- 
tive rein  on  the  career  of  Congress.  If  their 
power,  then,  be  not  efficient,  the  time  must  seem 
sadly  out  of  joint  to  those  who  hold  to  the  "  liter- 
ary theory  "  of  our  Constitution.  By  the  word 
of  the  Supreme  Court  must  all  legislation  stand 
or  fall,  so  long  as  law  is  respected.  But,  as 
I  have  already  pointed  out,  there  is  at  least 
one  large  province  of  jurisdiction  upon  which, 
though  invited,  and  possibly  privileged  to  ap- 
propriate it,  the  Supreme  Court  has,  nevertheless, 
refused  to  enter,  and  by  refusing  to  enter  which 
it  has  given  over  all  attempt  to  guard  one  of  the 
principal,  easiest,  and  most  obvious  roads  to 
federal  supremacy.  It  has  declared  itself  with- 
out authority  to  interfere  with  the  political  dis* 
1  Principles  of  Constitutional  Law,  pp.  143,  144. 


INTRODUCTORY.  35 

cretion  of  either  Congress  or  the  President,  and 
has  declined  all  effort  to  constrain  these  its  co- 
ordinate departments  to  the  performance  of  any, 
even  the  most  constitutionally  imperative  act.^ 
*'When,  indeed,  the  President  exceeds  his  au- 
thority, or  usurps  that  which  belongs  to  one  of 
the  other  departments,  his  orders,  commands,  or 
warrants  protect  no  one,  and  his  agents  become 
personally  responsible  for  their  acts.  The  check 
of  the  courts,  therefore,  consists  in  their  ability 
to  keep  the  executive  within  the  sphere  of  his 
authority  by  refusing  to  give  the  sanction  of  law 
to  whatever  he  may  do  beyond  it,  and  by  holding 
the  agents  or  instruments  of  his  unlawful  action 
to  strict  accountability."  ^  But  such  punishment, 
inflicted  not  directly  upon  the  chief  offender  but 
vicariously  upon  his  agents,  can  come  only  after 
all  the  harm  has  been  done.  The  courts  cannot 
forestall  the  President  and  prevent  the  doing  of 
mischief.  They  have  no  power  of  initiative ; 
they  must  wait  until  the  law  has  been  broken  and 
voluntary  litigants  have  made  up  their  pleadings ; 
must  wait  nowadays  many  months,  often  many 
years,  until  those  pleadings  are  reached  in  the 
regular  course  of  clearing  a  crowded  docket. 

Besides,  in  ordinary  times  it  is  not  from  the 
executive  that  the  most  dangerous  encroachments 

1  Marbnry  v.  Madison,  1  Crancb,  137. 
'  Cooley's  Principlet,  p.  157. 


86  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

are  to  be  apprehended.  The  legislature  is  the 
aggressive  spirit.  It  is  the  motive  power  of  the 
government,  and  unless  the  judiciary  can  check 
it,  the  courts  are  of  comparatively  little  worth  as 
balance-wheels  in  the  system.  It  is  the  subtile, 
stealthy,  almost  imperceptible  encroachments  of 
policy,  of  political  action,  which  constitute  the 
precedents  upon  which  additional  prerogatives 
are  generally  reared  ;  and  yet  these  are  the  very 
encroachments  with  which  it  is  hardest  for  the 
courts  to  deal,  and  concerning  which,  accord- 
ingly, the  federal  courts  have  declared  them- 
selves unauthorized  to  hold  any  opinions.  They 
have  naught  to  say  upon  questions  of  policy. 
Congress  must  itself  judge  what  measures  may 
legitimately  be  used  to  supplement  or  make 
effectiial  its  acknowledged  jurisdiction,  what  are 
the  laws  "  necessary  and  proper  for  carrying  into 
execution "  its  own  peculiar  powers,  "  and  all 
other  powers  vested  by  "  the  "  Constitution  in 
the  government  of  the  United  States,  or  in  any 
department  or  officer  thereof."  The  courts  are 
very  quick  and  keen-eyed,  too,  to  discern  pre- 
rogatives of  political  discretion  in  legislative 
acts,  and  exceedingly  slow  to  undertake  to  dis- 
criminate between  what  is  and  what  is  not  a 
violation  of  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution.  Con- 
gress must  wantonly  go  very  far  outside  of  the 
plain  and  unquestionable  meaning  of  the  Con* 


INTRODUCTORY.  87 

stitutlon,  must  bump  its  head  directly  against  all 
right  and  precedent,  must  kick  against  the  very 
pricks  of  all  well-established  rulings  and  inter- 
pretations, before  the  Supreme  Court  will  offer 
it  any  distinct  rebuke. 

Then,  too,  the  Supreme  Court  itself,  however 
upright  and  irreproachable  its  members,  has  gen- 
erally had  and  will  undoubtedly  continue  to  have 
a  distinct  political  complexion,  taken  from  the 
color  of  the  times  during  which  its  majority  was 
chosen.  The  bench  over  which  John  Marshall 
presided  was,  as  everybody  knows,  staunchly  and 
avowedly  federalist  in  its  views  ;  but  during  the 
ten  years  which  followed  1835  federalist  justices 
were  rapidly  displaced  by  Democrats,  and  the 
views  of  the  Court  changed  accordingly.  Indeed 
it  may  truthfully  be  said  that,  taking  our  political 
history  "  by  and  large,"  the  constitutional  inter- 
pretations of  the  Supreme  Court  have  changed, 
slowly  but  none  the  less  surely,  with  the  altered 
relations  of  power  between  the  national  parties. 
The  Federalists  were  backed  by  a  federalist  ju- 
diciary ;  the  period  of  democratic  supremacy  wit- 
nessed the  triumph  of  democratic  principles  in 
the  courts ;  and  republican  predominance  has 
driven  from  the  highest  tribunal  of  the  land  all 
but  one  representative  of  democratic  doctrines. 
It  has  been  only  during  comparatively  short 
periods  of  transition,  when  public  opinion  was 


88  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

passing  over  from  one  political  creed  to  another, 
that  the  decisions  of  the  federal  judiciary  have 
been  distinctly  opposed  to  the  principles  of  the 
ruling  political  party. 

But,  besides  and  above  all  this,  the  national 
courts  are  for  the  most  part  in  the  power  of 
Congress.  Even  the  Supreme  Court  is  not  be- 
yond its  control;  for  it  is  the  legislative  privi- 
lege to  increase,  whenever  the  legislative  will 
80  pleases,  the  number  of  the  judges  upon  the 
supreme  bench,  —  to  "  dilute  the  Constitution," 
as  Webster  once  put  it,  "  by  creating  a  court 
which  shall  construe  away  its  provisions ; "  and 
this  on  one  memorable  occasion  it  did  choose  to 
do.  In  December,  1869,  the  Supreme  Court  de- 
cided against  the  constitutionality  of  Congress's 
pet  Legal  Tender  Acts ;  and  in  the  following 
March  a  vacancy  on  the  bench  opportunely 
occurring,  and  a  new  justiceship  having  been 
created  to  meet  the  emergency,  the  Senate  gave 
the  President  to  understand  that  no  nominee 
unfavorable  to  the  debated  acts  would  be  con- 
firmed, two  justices  of  the  predominant  party's 
way  of  thinking  were  appointed,  the  hostile 
majority  of  the  court  was  outvoted,  and  the 
obnoxious  decision  reversed.^ 

The  creation  of  additional  justiceships  is  not, 

1  For  an  incisive  account  of  the  whole  affair,  see  an  article 
entitled  "  The  Session,"  No.  Am.  Review,  vol.  cxi.,  pp.  48,  49. 


INTRODUCTORY.  89 

however,  the  only  means  by  which  Congress  can 
coerce  and  control  the  Supreme  Court.  It  may 
forestall  an  adverse  decision  by  summarily  de- 
priving the  court  of  jurisdiction  over  the  case  in 
which  such  a  decision  was  threatened,^  and  that 
even  while  the  case  is  pending;  for  only  a 
very  small  part  of  the  jurisdiction  of  even  the 
Supreme  Court  is  derived  directly  from  the  Con- 
stitution. Most  of  it  is  founded  upon  the  Judi- 
ciary Act  of  1789,  which,  being  a  mere  act  of 
Congress,  may  be  repealed  at  any  time  that 
Congress  chooses  to  repeal  it.  Upon  this  Judi- 
ciary Act,  too,  depend  not  only  the  powers  but 
also  the  very  existence  of  the  inferior  courts 
of  the  United  States,  the  Circuit  and  District 
Courts ;  and  their  possible  fate,  in  case  of  a 
conflict  with  Congress,  is  significantly  foreshad- 
owed in  that  Act  of  1802  by  which  a  democratic 
Congress  swept  away,  root  and  branch,  the  sys- 
tem of  circuit  courts  which  had  been  created  in 
the  previous  year,  but  which  was  hateful  to  the 
newly-successful  Democrats  because  it  had  been 
officered  with  Federalists  in  the  last  hours  of 
John  Adams's  administration. 

This  balance  of  judiciary  against  legislature 
and  executive  would  seem,  therefore,  to  be  an- 
other of  those  ideal  balances  which  are  to  be 
found  in  the  books  rather  than  in  the  rough  re- 
1  7  WaU.  506. 


40  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

alities  of  actual  practice ;  for  manifestly  the 
power  of  the  courts  is  safe  only  during  seasons 
of  political  peace,  when  parties  are  not  aroused 
to  passion  or  tempted  by  the  command  of  irre- 
sistible majorities. 

As  for  some  of  the  other  constitutional  bal- 
ances enumerated  in  that  passage  of  the  letter 
to  John  Taylor  which  I  have  taken  as  a  text, 
their  present  inefficacy  is  quite  too  plain  to 
need  proof.  The  constituencies  may  have  been 
balanced  against  their  representatives  in  Mr. 
Adams's  day,  for  that  was  not  a  day  of  prima- 
ries and  of  strict  caucus  discipline.  The  legis- 
latures of  the  States,  too,  may  have  been  able  to 
exercise  some  appreciable  influence  upon  the  ac- 
tion of  the  Senate,  if  those  were  days  when  pol- 
icy was  the  predominant  consideration  which 
determined  elections  to  the  Senate,  and  the  legis- 
lative choice  was  not  always  a  matter  of  astute 
management,  of  mere  personal  weight,  or  party 
expediency ;  and  the  presidential  electors  un- 
doubtedly did  have  at  one  time  some  freedom  of 
choice  in  naming  the  chief  magistrate,  but  be- 
fore the  third  presidential  election  some  of  them 
were  pledged,  before  Adams  wrote  this  letter  the 
majority  of  them  were  wont  to  obey  the  dictates 
of  a  congressional  caucus,  and  for  the  last  fifty 
years  they  have  simply  registered  the  will  of 
party  conventions. 


INTRODUCTORY.  41 

It  is  noteworthy  that  Mr.  Adams,  possibly  be- 
cause he  had  himself  been  President,  describes 
the  executive  as  constituting  only  "  in  some  de- 
gree "  a  check  upon  Congress,  though  he  puts 
no  such  limitation  upon  the  other  balances  of 
the  system.  Independently  of  experience,  how- 
ever, it  might  reasonably  have  been  expected 
that  the  prerogatives  of  the  President  would 
have  been  one  of  the  most  effectual  restraints 
upon  the  power  of  Congress.  He  was  consti- 
tuted one  of  the  three  great  coordinate  branches 
of  the  government ;  his  functions  were  made  of 
the  highest  dignity;  his  privileges  many  and 
substantial  —  so  great,  indeed,  that  it  has  pleased 
the  fancy  of  some  writers  to  parade  them  as  ex- 
ceeding those  of  the  British  crown;  and  there 
can  be  little  doubt  that,  had  the  presidential 
chair  always  been  filled  by  men  of  commanding 
character,  of  acknowledged  ability,  and  of  thor- 
ough political  training,  it  would  have  continued 
to  be  a  seat  of  the  highest  authority  and  consid- 
eration, the  true  centre  of  the  federal  structure, 
the  real  throne  of  administration,  and  the  fre- 
quent source  of  policies.  Washington  and  his 
Cabinet  commanded  the  ear  of  Congress,  and 
gave  shape  to  its  deliberations  ;  Adams,  though 
often  crossed  and  thwarted,  gave  character  to 
the  government ;  and  Jefferson,  as  President  no 
less  than  as  Secretary  of  State,  was  the  real 


42  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

leader  of  his  party.  But  the  prestige  of  the 
presidential  office  has  declined  with  the  charac- 
ter of  the  Presidents.  And  the  character  of  the 
Presidents  has  declined  as  the  perfection  of  self- 
ish party  tactics  has  advanced. 

It  was  inevitable  that  it  should  be  so.  After 
independence  of  choice  on  the  part  of  the  presi- 
dential electors  had  given  place  to  the  choice  of 
presidential  candidates  by  party  conventions,  it 
became  absolutely  necessary,  in  the  eyes  of  pol- 
iticans,  and  more  and  more  necessary  as  time 
went  on,  to  make  expediency  and  availability  thb 
only  rules  of  selection.  As  each  party,  when  in 
convention  assembled,  spoke  only  those  opinions 
which  seemed  to  have  received  the  sanction  of 
the  general  voice,  carefully  suppressing  in  its 
"  platform  "  all  unpopular  political  tenets,  and 
scrupulously  omitting  mention  of  every  doctrine 
that  might  be  looked  upon  as  characteristic  and 
as  part  of  a  peculiar  and  original  programme, 
so,  when  the  presidential  candidate  came  to  be 
chosen,  it  was  recognized  as  imperatively  nec- 
essary that  he  should  have  as  short  a  political 
record  as  possible,  and  that  he  should  wear  a 
clean  and  irreproachable  insignificance.  "  Gen- 
tlemen," said  a  distinguished  American  public 
man,  "  I  would  make  an  excellent  President,  but 
a  very  poor  candidate."  A  decisive  career  which 
gives  a  man  a  well-understood  place  in  public 


INTRO  D  UCTOR  Y.  43 

estimation  constitutes  a  positive  disability  for 
the  presidency  ;  because  candidacy  must  precede 
election,  and  the  shoals  of  candidacy  can  be 
passed  only  by  a  light  boat  which  carries  little 
freight  and  can  be  turned  readily  about  to  suit 
the  intricacies  of  the  passage. 

I  am  disposed  to  think,  however,  that  the  de- 
cline in  the  character  of  the  Presidents  is  not 
the  cause,  but  only  the  accompanying  manifes- 
tation, of  the  declining  prestige  of  the  presiden- 
tial office.  That  high  office  has  fallen  from  its 
first  estate  of  dignity  because  its  power  has 
waned ;  and  its  power  has  waned  because  the 
power  of  Congress  has  become  predominant. 
The  early  Presidents  were,  as  I  have  said,  men 
of  such  a  stamp  that  they  would  under  any  cir- 
cumstances have  made  their  influence  felt ;  but 
their  opportunities  were  exceptional.  What 
with  quarreling  and  fighting  with  England, 
buying  Louisiana  and  Florida,  building  dykes 
to  keep  out  the  flood  of  the  French  Revolution, 
and  extricating  the  country  from  ceaseless  broils 
with  the  South  American  Republics,  the  govern- 
ment was,  as  has  been  pointed  out,  constantly 
busy,  during  the  first  quarter  century  of  its  ex- 
istence, with  the  adjustment  of  foreign  relations ; 
and  with  foreign  relations,  of  course,  the  Presi- 
dents had  ever)i;hing  to  do,  since  theirs  was  the 
office  of  negotiation. 


44  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

Moreover,  as  regards  home  policy  also  those 
times  were  not  like  ours.  Congress  was  some- 
what awkward  in  exercising  its  untried  powers, 
and  its  machinery  was  new,  and  without  that 
fine  adjustment  which  has  since  made  it  perfect 
of  its  kind.  Not  having  as  yet  learned  the  art 
of  governing  itself  to  the  best  advantage,  and 
being  without  that  facility  of  legislation  which 
it  afterwards  acquired,  the  Legislature  was  glad 
to  get  guidance  and  suggestions  of  policy  from 
the  Executive. 

But  this  state  of  things  did  not  last  long. 
Congress  was  very  quick  and  apt  in  learning 
what  it  could  do  and  in  getting  into  thoroughly 
good  trim  to  do  it.  It  very  early  divided  itself 
into  standing  committees  which  it  equipped  with 
very  comprehensive  and  thorough -going  privi- 
leges of  legislative  initiative  and  control,  and  set 
itself  through  these  to  administer  the  govern- 
ment. Congress  is  (to  adopt  Mr.  Bagehot's  de- 
scription of  Parliament)  "nothing  less  than  a 
big  meeting  of  more  or  less  idle  people.  In  pro- 
portion as  you  give  it  power  it  will  inquire  into 
everything,  settle  everything,  meddle  in  every- 
thing. In  an  ordinary  despotism  the  powers  of 
the  despot  are  limited  by  his  bodily  capacity, 
and  by  the  calls  of  pleasure ;  he  is  but  one  man  ,• 
there  are  but  twelve  hours  in  his  day,  and  he 
is  not  disposed  to  employ  more  than  a  small  part 


INTRODUCTORY.  45 

in  dull  business :  he  keeps  the  rest  for  the  court, 
or  the  harem,  or  for  society."  But  Congress 
"is  a  despot  who  has  unlimited  time, — who  has 
unlimited  vanity,  —  who  has,  or  believes  he  has, 
unlimited  comprehension,  —  whose  pleasure  is  in 
action,  whose  life  is  work."  Accordingly  it  has 
entered  more  and  more  into  the  details  of  ad- 
ministration, until  it  has  virtually  taken  into  its 
own  hands  all  the  substantial  powers  of  govern- 
ment. It  does  not  domineer  over  the  President 
himself,  but  it  makes  the  Secretaries  its  humble 
servants.  Not  that  it  would  hesitate,  upon  oc- 
casion, to  deal  directly  with  the  chief  magistrate 
himself ;  but  it  has  few  calls  to  do  so,  because 
our  latter-day  Presidents  live  by  proxy ;  they 
are  the  executive  in  theory,  but  the  Secretaries 
are  the  executive  in  fact.  At  the  very  first 
session  of  Congress  steps  were  taken  towards 
parceling  out  executive  work  amongst  several 
departments,  according  to  a  then  sufficiently 
thorough  division  of  labor;  and  if  the  President 
of  that  day  was  not  able  to  direct  administra- 
tive details,  of  course  the  President  of  to-day  is 
infinitely  less  able  to  do  so,  and  must  content 
himself  with  such  general  supervision  as  he  may 
find  time  to  exercise.  He  is  in  all  every-day 
concerns  shielded  by  the  responsibility  of  his 
subordinates. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  this  change  has  raised 


46  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

the  cabinet  in  dignity  or  power ;  it  has  only  al« 
tered  their  relations  to  the  scheme  of  govern- 
ment. The  members  of  the  President's  cabinet 
have  always  been  prominent  in  administration ; 
and  certainly  the  early  cabinets  were  no  less 
strong  in  political  infkience  than  are  the  cabi- 
nets of  our  own  day ;  but  they  were  then  only 
the  President's  advisers,  whereas  they  are  now 
rather  the  President's  colleagues.  The  Presi- 
dent is  now  scarcely  the  executive  ;  he  is  the 
head  of  the  administration ;  he  appoints  the 
executive.  Of  course  this  is  not  a  legal  prin- 
ciple ;  it  is  only  a  fact.  In  legal  theory  the 
President  can  control  every  operation  of  every 
department  of  the  executive  branch  of  the  gov- 
ernment ;  but  in  fact  it  is  not  practicable  for  him 
to  do  so,  and  a  limitation  of  fact  is  as  potent  as 
a  prohibition  of  law. 

But,  though  the  heads  of  the  executive  depart- 
ments are  thus  no  longer  simply  the  counselors 
of  the  President,  having  become  in  a  very  real 
sense  members  of  the  executive,  their  guiding 
power  in  the  conduct  of  affairs,  instead  of  ad- 
vancing, has  steadily  diminished ;  because  while 
they  were  being  made  integral  parts  of  the  ma- 
chinery of  administration,  Congress  was  extend- 
ing its  own  sphere  of  activity,  was  getting  into 
the  habit  of  investigating  and  managing  every 
thing.     The  executive  was  losing  and  Congress 


INTRODUCTORY.  47 

gaining  weight ;  and  the  station  to  which  cabi- 
nets finally  attained  was  a  station  of  diminished 
and  diminishing  power.  There  is  no  distincter 
tendency  in  congressional  history  than  the  ten- 
dency to  subject  even  the  details  of  administra- 
tion to  the  constant  supervision,  and  all  policy 
to  the  watchful  intervention,  of  the  Standing 
Committees. 

I  am  inclined  to  think,  therefore,  that  the  en- 
larged powers  of  Congress  are  the  fruits  rather 
of  an  immensely  increased  efficiency  of  organiza- 
tion, and  of  the  redoubled  activity  consequent 
upon  the  facility  of  action  secured  by  such  or- 
ganization, than  of  any  definite  and  persistent 
scheme  of  conscious  usurpation.  It  is  safe  to 
say  that  Congress  always  had  the  desire  to  have 
a  hand  in  every  affair  of  federal  government ; 
but  it  was  only  by  degrees  that  it  found  means 
and  opportunity  to  gratify  that  desire,  and  its 
activity,  extending  its  bounds  wherever  perfected 
processes  of  congressional  work  offered  favoring 
prospects,  has  been  enlarged  so  naturally  and 
so  silently  that  it  has  almost  always  seemed  of 
normal  extent,  and  has  never,  except  perhaps 
during  one  or  two  brief  periods  of  extraordinary 
political  disturbance,  appeared  to  reach  much 
beyond  its  acknowledged  constitutional  sphere. 

It  is  only  in  the  exercise  of  those  functions  of 
public  and  formal  consultation  and  cooperation 


48  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

with  the  President  which  are  the  peculiar  offices 
of  the  Senate,  that  the  power  of  Congress  has 
made  itself  offensive  to  popular  conceptions  of 
constitutional  propriety,  because  it  is  only  in  the 
exercise  of  such  functions  that  Congress  is  com- 
pelled to  be  overt  and  demonstrative  in  its  claims 
of  over-lordship.  The  House  of  Representatives 
has  made  very  few  noisy  demonstrations  of  its 
usurped  right  of  ascendency ;  not  because  it  was 
diffident  or  unambitious,  but  because  it  could 
maintain  and  extend  its  prerogatives  quite  as 
satisfactorily  without  noise  ;  whereas  the  aggres- 
sive policy  of  the  Senate  has,  in  the  acts  of  its 
"  executive  sessions,"  necessarily  been  overt,  in 
spite  of  the  closing  of  the  doors,  because  when 
acting  as  the  President's  council  in  the  ratifica- 
tion of  treaties  and  in  appointments  to  office  its 
competition  for  power  has  been  more  formally 
and  directly  a  contest  with  the  executive  than 
were  those  really  more  significant  legislative  acts 
by  which,  in  conjunction  with  the  House,  it  has 
habitually  forced  the  heads  of  the  executive  de- 
partments to  observe  the  will  of  Congress  at 
every  important  turn  of  policy.  Hence  it  is  that 
to  the  superficial  view  it  appears  that  only  the 
Senate  has  been  outrageous  in  its  encroachments 
upon  executive  privilege.  It  is  not  often  easy 
to  see  the  true  constitutional  bearing  of  strictly 
legislative  action ;  but  it  is  patent  even  to  the 


IN  TROD  UCTOR  Y.  49 

l^ast  observant  that  in  the  matter  of  appoint- 
ments to  office,  for  instance,  senators  have  often 
outrun  their  legal  right  to  give  or  withhold  their 
assent  to  appointments,  by  insisting  upon  being 
first  consulted  concerning  nominations  as  well, 
and  have  thus  made  their  constitutional  assent 
to  appointments  dependent  upon  an  unconstitu- 
tional control  of  nominations. 

This  particular  usurpation  has  been  put  upon 
a  very  solid  basis  of  law  by  that  Tenure-of -Office 
Act,  which  took  away  from  President  Johnson, 
in  an  hour  of  party  heat  and  passion,  that  inde- 
pendent power  of  removal  from  office  with  which 
the  Constitution  had  invested  him,  but  which  he 
had  used  in  a  way  that  exasperated  a  Senate  not 
of  his  own  way  of  thinking.  But  though  this 
teasing  power  of  the  Senate's  in  the  matter  of 
the  federal  patronage  is  repugnant  enough  to  the 
original  theory  of  the  Constitution,  it  is  likely 
to  be  quite  nullified  by  that  policy  of  civil-service 
reform  which  has  gained  so  firm,  and  mayhap  so 
lasting,  a  footing  in  our  national  legislation ;  and 
in  no  event  woidd  the  control  of  the  patronage 
by  the  Senate  have  unbalanced  the  federal  sys- 
tem more  seriously  than  it  may  some  day  be  un- 
balanced by  an  irresponsible  exertion  of  that 
body's  semi-executive  powers  in  regard  to  the 
foreign  policy  of  the  government.  More  than 
one  passage  in  the  history  of  our  foreign  rela* 


50  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

tions  illustrates  the  danger.  During  the  single 
congressional  session  of  1868-9,  for  example, 
the  treaiy-marring  power  of  the  Senate  was  ex- 
erted in  a  way  that  made  the  comparative  weak- 
ness of  the  executive  very  conspicuous,  and  was 
ominous  of  very  serious  results.  It  showed  the 
executive  in  the  right,  but  feeble  and  irresolute ; 
the  Senate  masterful,  though  in  the  wrong.  Den- 
njiark  had  been  asked  to  part  with  the  island  of 
St.  Thomas  to  the  United  States,  and  had  at  first 
refused  all  terms,  not  only  because  she  cared 
little  for  the  price,  but  also  and  principally  be- 
cause such  a  sale  as  that  proposed  was  opposed 
to  the  established  policy  of  the  powers  of  Wes- 
tern Europe,  in  whose  favor  Denmark  wished 
to  stand ;  but  finally,  by  stress  of  persistent  and 
importunate  negotiation,  she  had  been  induced 
to  yield ;  a  treaty  had  been  signed  and  sent  to 
the  Senate ;  the  people  of  St.  Thomas  had  sig- 
nified their  consent  to  the  cession  by  a  formal 
vote ;  and  the  island  had  been  actually  trans- 
ferred to  an  authorized  agent  of  our  government, 
upon  the  faith,  on  the  part  of  the  Danish  minis- 
ters, that  our  representatives  would  not  have  tri- 
fled with  them  by  entering  upon  an  important 
business  transaction  which  they  were  not  assured 
of  their  ability  to  conclude.  But  the  Senate  lei 
the  treaty  lie  neglected  in  its  committee-room  j 
the  limit  of  time  agreed  upon  for  confirmation 


INTRODUCTORY.  51 

passed;  the  Danish  government,  at  last  bent 
upon  escaping  the  ridiculous  humiliation  that 
woidd  follow  a  failure  of  the  business  at  that 
stage,  extended  the  time  and  even  sent  over  one 
of  its  most  eminent  ministers  of  state  to  urge  the 
negotiation  by  all  dignified  means  ;  but  the  Sen- 
ate cared  nothing  for  Danish  feelings  and  could 
afford,  it  thought,  to  despise  President  Grant 
and  Mr.  Fish,  and  at  the  next  session  rejected 
the  treaty,  and  left  the  Danes  to  repossess  them- 
selves of  the  island,  which  we  had  concluded  not 
to  buy  after  all. 

It  was  during  this  same  session  of  1868-9  that 
the  Senate  teased  the  executive  by  throwing 
every  possible  obstacle  in  the  way  of  the  confir- 
mation of  the  much  more  important  treaty  with 
Great  Britain  relative  to  the  Alabama  claims, 
nearly  marring  for  good  and  all  one  of  the  most 
satisfactory  successes  of  our  recent  foreign  pol* 
icy  ;  ^  but  it  is  not  necessary  to  dwell  at  length 
upon  these  well-known  incidents  of  our  later  his- 
tory, inasmuch  as  these  are  only  two  of  innumer- 
able instances  which  make  it  safe  to  say  that 
from  whatever  point  we  view  the  relations  of  the 
executive  and  the  legislature,  it  is  evident  that 
the  power  of  the  latter  has  steadily  increased  at 

^  For  a  brilliant  account  of  the  senatorial  history  of  these 
two  treaties,  see  the  article  entitled  "  The  Session,"  No.  Am, 
Bev.,  voL  cviii.  (1869),  p.  626  et  aeq. 


52  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

the  expense  of  the  prerogatives  of  the  former, 
and  that  the  degree  in  which  the  one  of  these 
great  branches  of  government  is  balanced  against 
the  other  is  a  very  insignificant  degree  indeed. 
For  in  the  exercise  of  his  power  of  veto,  which 
is  of  course,  beyond  all  comparison,  his  most 
formidable  prerogative,  the  President  acts  not 
as  the  executive  but  as  a  third  branch  of  the 
legislature.  As  Oliver  Ellsworth  said,  at  the 
first  session  of  the  Senate,  the  President  is,  as 
regards  the  passage  of  bills,  but  a  part  of  Con- 
gress ;  and  he  can  be  an  efiicient,  imperative 
member  of  the  legislative  system  only  in  quiet 
times,  when  parties  are  pretty  evenly  balanced, 
and  there  are  no  indomitable  majorities  to  tread 
obnoxious  vetoes  under  foot. 

Even  this  rapid  outline  sketch  of  the  two  pic- 
tures, of  the  theory  and  of  the  actual  practices 
of  the  Constitution,  has  been  sufficient,  there- 
fore, to  show  the  most  marked  points  of  differ- 
ence between  the  two,  and  to  justify  that  careful 
study  of  congressional  government,  as  the  real 
government  of  the  Union,  which  I  am  about  to 
undertake.  The  balances  of  the  Constitution 
are  for  the  most  part  only  ideal.  For  all  prac- 
tical purposes  the  national  government  is  su- 
preme over  the  state  governments,  and  Con- 
gress predominant  over  its  so-called  coordinate 
branches.     Whereas  Congress  at  first  overshad. 


INTROD  UCTOR  Y.  63 

owed  neither  President  nor  federal  judiciary,  it 
now  on  occasion  rules  both  with  easy  mastery 
and  with  a  high  hand  ;  and  whereas  each  State 
once  guarded  its  sovereign  prerogatives  with 
jealous  pride,  and  able  men  not  a  few  preferred 
political  advancement  under  the  governments  of 
the  great  commonwealths  to  office  under  the  new 
federal  Constitution,  seats  in  state  legislatures 
are  now  no  longer  coveted  except  as  possible 
approaches  to  seats  in  Congress ;  and  even  gov- 
ernors of  States  seek  election  to  the  national 
Senate  as  a  promotion,  a  reward  for  the  humbler 
services  they  have  rendered  their  local  govern- 
ments. 

What  makes  it  the  more  important  to  under- 
stand the  present  mechanism  of  national  govern- 
ment, and  to  study  the  methods  of  congressional 
rule  in  a  light  unclouded  by  theory,  is  that 
there  is  plain  evidence  that  the  expansion  of 
federal  power  is  to  continue,  and  that  there 
exists,  consequently,  an  evident  necessity  that  it 
should  be  known  just  what  to  do  and  how  to  do 
it,  when  the  time  comes  for  public  opinion  to 
take  control  of  the  forces  which  are  changing 
the  character  of  our  Constitution.  There  are 
voices  in  the  air  which  cannot  be  misvmderstood. 
The  times  seem  to  favor  a  centralization  of  gov- 
ernmental functions  such  as  could  not  have  sug- 
gested itself  as  a  possibility  to  the  f  ramers  of 


64  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

the  Constitution.  Since  they  gave  their  work 
to  the  world  the  whole  face  of  that  world  has 
changed.  The  Constitution  was  adopted  when 
it  was  six  days'  hard  traveling  from  New  York 
to  Boston ;  when  to  cross  East  River  was  to  ven- 
ture a  perilous  voyage  ;  when  men  were  thank- 
ful for  weekly  mails ;  when  the  extent  of  the 
coimtry's  commerce  was  reckoned  not  in  mill- 
ions but  in  thousands  of  dollars  ;  when  the  coun- 
try knew  few  cities,  and  had  but  begun  man- 
ufactures ;  when  Indians  were  pressing  upon 
near  frontiers  ;  when  there  were  no  telegraph 
lines,  and  no  monster  corporations.  Unques- 
tionably, the  pressing  problems  of  the  present 
moment  regard  the  regulation  of  our  vast  sys- 
tems of  commerce  and  manufacture,  the  control 
of  giant  corporations,  the  restraint  of  monopo- 
lies, the  perfection  of  fiscal  arrangements,  the 
facilitating  of  economic  exchanges,  and  many 
other  like  national  concerns,  amongst  which  may 
possibly  be  numbered  the  question  of  marriage 
and  divorce  ;  and  the  greatest  of  these  problems 
do  not  fall  within  even  the  enlarged  sphere  of 
the  federal  government ;  some  of  them  can  be 
embraced  within  its  jurisdiction  by  no  possible 
stretch  of  construction,  and  the  majority  of  them 
only  by  wresting  the  Constitution  to  strange  and 
as  yet  unimagined  uses.  Still  there  is  a  distinct 
laovement  in  favor  of  national   control  of  all 


INTROD  TTCTOR  Y.  65 

questions  of  policy  which  manifestly  demand 
uniformity  of  treatment  and  power  of  adminis- 
ti-ation  such  as  cannot  be  realized  by  the  sepa- 
rate, unconcerted  action  of  the  States  ;  and  it 
seems  probable  to  many  that,  whether  by  consti- 
tutional amendment,  or  by  still  further  flights 
of  construction,  yet  broader  territory  will  at  no 
very  distant  day  be  assigned  to  the  federal  gov- 
ernment. It  becomes  a  matter  of  the  utmost 
importance,  therefore,  both  for  those  who  would 
arrest  this  tendency,  and  for  those  who,  because 
they  look  upon  it  with  allowance  if  not  with 
positive  favor,  would  let  it  run  its  course,  to  ex- 
amine critically  the  government  upon  which  this 
new  weight  of  responsibility  and  power  seems 
likely  to  be  cast,  in  order  that  its  capacity  both 
for  the  work  it  now  does  and  for  that  which  it 
may  be  called  upon  to  do  may  be  definitely  es- 
timated. 

Judge  Cooley,  in  his  admirable  work  on  "  The 
Principles  of  American  Constitutional  Law," 
after  quoting  Mr.  Adams's  enumeration  of  the 
checks  and  balances  of  the  federal  system,  adds 
this  comment  upon  Mr.  Adams's  concluding 
statement  that  that  system  is  an  invention  of 
our  own.  "  The  invention,  nevertheless,  was 
suggested  by  the  British  Constitution,  in  which 
a  system  almost  equally  elaborate  was  then  in 
force.     In  its  outward  forms  that  system  still 


6C  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

remains ;  but  there  has  been  for  more  than  a 
century  a  gradual  change  in  the  direction  of  a 
concentration  of  legislative  and  executive  power 
in  the  popular  house  of  Parliament,  so  that  the 
government  now  is  sometimes  said,  with  no  great 
departure  from  the  fact,  to  be  a  government  by 
the  Plouse  of  Commons."  But  Judge  Cooley 
does  not  seem  to  see,  or,  if  he  sees,  does  not 
emphasize  the  fact,  that  our  own  system  has 
been  hardly  less  subject  to  "  a  gradual  change  in 
the  direction  of  a  concentration  "of  all  the  sub- 
stantial powers  of  government  in  the  hands  of 
Congress  ;  so  that  it  is  now,  though  a  wide  de- 
parture from  the  form  of  things,  "  no  great 
departure  from  the  fact"  to  describe  ours  as 
a  government  by  the  Standing  Committees  of 
Congress.  This  fact  is,  however,  deducible  from 
very  many  passages  of  Judge  Cooley' s  own  writ- 
ings ;  for  he  is  by  no  means  insensible  of  that 
expansion  of  the  powers  of  the  federal  govern- 
ment and  that  crystallization  of  its  methods 
which  have  practically  made  obsolete  the  early 
constitutional  theories,  and  even  the  modified 
theory  which  he  himself  seems  to  hold. 

He  has  tested  the  nice  adjustment  of  the  the- 
oretical balances  by  the  actual  facts,  and  has 
carefidly  set  forth  the  results ;  but  he  has  no- 
where brought  those  results  together  into  a  sin- 
gle comprehensive  view  which  might  serve  as  a 


INTRODUCTORY.  57 

clear  and  satisfactory  delineation  of  the  Consti- 
tution of  to-day ;  nor  has  he,  or  any  other  writer 
of  capacity,  examined  minutely  and  at  length 
that  internal  organization  of  Congress  which  de- 
termines its  methods  of  legislation,  which  shapes 
its  means  of  governing  the  executive  depart- 
ments, which  contains  in  it  the  whole  mechan- 
ism whereby  the  policy  of  the  country  is  in  all 
points  directed,  and  which  is  therefore  an  es- 
sential branch  of  constitutional  study.  As  the 
House  of  Commons  is  the  central  object  of  ex- 
amination in  every  study  of  the  English  Consti- 
tution, so  should  CongTcss  be  in  every  study  of 
our  own.  Any  one  who  is  unfamiliar  with  what 
Congress  actually  does  and  how  it  does  it,  with 
all  its  duties  and  all  its  occupations,  with  all  its 
devices  of  management  and  resources  of  power, 
is  very  far  from  a  knowledge  of  the  constitu- 
tional system  under  which  we  live  ;  and  to  every 
one  who  knows  these  things  that  knowledge  is 
very  near. 


IL 

THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 

No  more  vital  truth  was  ever  uttered  than  that  freedom  and  free  in- 
stitutions cannot  long  be  maintained  by  any  people  who  do  not  imder- 
stand  the  nature  of  their  own  government. 

Like  a  vast  picture  thronged  with  figures  of 
equal  prominence  and  crowded  with  elaborate 
and  obtrusive  details,  Congress  is  hard  to  see 
satisfactorily  and  appreciatively  at  a  single  view 
and  from  a  single  stand-point.  Its  complicated 
forms  and  diversified  structure  confuse  the  vis- 
ion, and  conceal  the  system  which  underlies  its 
composition.  It  is  too  complex  to  be  under- 
stood without  an  effort,  without  a  carefid  and 
systematic  process  of  analysis.  Consequently, 
very  few  people  do  understand  it,  and  its  doors 
are  practically  shut  against  the  comprehension 
of  the  public  at  large.  If  Congress  had  a  few 
authoritative  leaders  whose  figures  were  very 
distinct  and  very  conspicuous  to  the  eye  of  the 
world,  and  who  could  represent  and  stand  for 
the  national  legislature  in  the  thoughts  of  that 
Very  numerous,  and  withal  very  respectable,  class 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.         69 

of  persons  who  must  think  specifically  and  in 
concrete  forms  when  they  think  at  all,  those 
persons  who  can  make  something  out  of  men 
but  very  little  out  of  intangible  generalizations, 
it  would  be  quite  within  the  region  of  possibili- 
ties for  the  majority  of  the  nation  to  follow  the 
course  of  legislation  without  any  very  serious 
confusion  of  thought.  I  suppose  that  almost 
everybody  who  just  now  gives  any  heed  to  the 
policy  of  Great  Britain,  with  regard  even  to  the 
reform  of  the  franchise  and  other  like  strictly 
legislative  questions,  thinks  of  Mr.  Gladstone 
and  his  colleagues  rather  than  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  whose  servants  they  are.  The  ques- 
tion is  not,  What  will  Parliament  do  ?  but.  What 
will  Mr.  Gladstone  do  ?  And  there  is  even  less 
doubt  that  it  is  easier  and  more  natural  to  look 
upon  the  legislative  designs  of  Germany  as 
locked  up  behind  Bismarck's  heavy  brows  than 
to  think  of  them  as  dependent  upon  the  determi- 
nations of  the  Reichstag,  although  as  a  matter 
of  fact  its  consent  is  indispensable  even  to  the 
plans  of  the  imperious  and  domineering  Chan- 
cellor. 

But  there  is  no  great  minister  or  ministry  to 
represent  the  will  and  being  of  Congress  in  the 
common  thought.  The  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  stands  as  near  to  leadership  as 
any  one  ;  but  his  will  does  not  run  as  a  formar 


60  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

tive  and  imperative  power  in  legislation  much 
beyond  the  appointment  of  the  committees  who 
are  to  lead  the  House  and  do  its  work  for  it,  and 
it  is,  therefore,  not  entirely  satisfactory  to  the 
public  mind  to  trace  all  legislation  to  him.  He 
may  have  a  controlling  hand  in  starting  it ;  but 
he  sits  too  still  in  his  chair,  and  is  too  evidently 
not  on  the  floor  of  the  body  over  which  he  pre- 
sides, to  make  it  seem  probable  to  the  ordinary 
judgment  that  he  has  much  immediate  concern 
in  legislation  after  it  is  once  set  afoot.  Every- 
body knows  that  he  is  a  staunch  and  avowed 
partisan,  and  that  he  likes  to  make  smooth,  when- 
ever he  can,  the  legislative  paths  of  his  party ; 
but  it  does  not  seem  likely  that  all  important 
measures  originate  with  him,  or  that  he  is  the 
author  of  every  distinct  policy.  And  in  fact  he 
is  not.  He  is  a  great  party  chief,  but  the  hedg- 
ing circumstances  of  his  official  position  as  pre- 
siding officer  prevent  his  performing  the  part  of 
active  leadership.  He  appoints  the  leaders  of 
the  House,  but  he  is  not  himseK  its  leader. 

The  leaders  of  the  House  are  the  chairmen  of 
the  principal  Standing  Committees.  Indeed,  to 
be  exactly  accurate,  the  House  has  as  many 
leaders  as  there  are  subjects  of  legislation ;  for 
there  are  as  many  Standing  Committees  as  there 
are  leading  classes  of  legislation,  and  in  the  con- 
sideration of  every  topic  of  business  the  House 


THE  HOUSE  OF  BEPRESENTATIVE8.         61 

IS  guided  by  a  special  leader  in  the  person  of  the 
chairman  of  the  Standing  Committee,  charged 
with  the  superintendence  of  measures  of  the  par- 
ticular class  to  which  that  topic  belongs.  It  is 
this  multiplicity  of  leaders,  this  many -headed 
leadership,  which  makes  the  organization  of  the 
House  too  complex  to  afford  uninformed  peo- 
ple and  unskilled  observers  any  easy  clue  to  its 
methods  of  rule.  For  the  chairmen  of  the  Stand- 
ing Committees  do  not  constitute  a  cooperative 
body  like  a  ministry.  They  do  not  consult  and 
concur  in  the  adoption  of  homogeneous  and  mu- 
tually helpful  measures;  there  is  no  thought 
of  acting  in  concert.  Each  Committee  goes  its 
own  way  at  its  own  pace.  It  is  impossible  to 
discover  any  unity  or  method  in  the  disconnected 
and  therefore  unsystematic,  confused,  and  des- 
ultory action  of  the  House,  or  any  common  pur- 
pose in  the  measures  which  its  Committees  from 
time  to  time  recommend. 

And  it  is  not  only  to  the  unanalytic  thought 
of  the  common  observer  who  looks  at  the  House 
from  the  outside  that  its  doings  seem  helter- 
skelter,  and  without  comprehensible  rule ;  it  is 
not  at  once  easy  to  understand  them  when  they 
are  scrutinized  in  their  daily  headway  through 
open  session  by  one  who  is  inside  the  House. 
The  newly-elected  member,  entering  its  doors 
for  the  first  time,  and  with  no  more  knowledge 


62  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

of  its  rules  and  customs  than  the  more  intel- 
ligent of  his  constituents  possess,  always  experi- 
ences great  difficulty  in  adjusting  his  precon- 
ceived ideas  of  congressional  life  to  the  strange 
and  unlooked-for  conditions  by  which  he  finds 
himself  surrounded  after  he  has  been  sworn  in 
and  has  become  a  part  of  the  great  legislative 
machine.  Indeed  there  are  generally  many 
things  connected  with  his  career  in  Washington 
to  disgust  and  dispirit,  if  not  to  aggrieve,  the 
new  member.  In  the  first  place,  his  local  repu- 
tation does  not  follow  him  to  the  federal  capital. 
Possibly  the  members  from  his  own  State  know 
him,  and  receive  him  into  full  fellowship ;  but 
no  one  else  knows  him,  except  as  an  adherent  of 
this  or  that  party,  or  as  a  new-comer  from  this 
or  that  State.  He  finds  his  station  insignifi- 
cant, and  his  identity  indistinct.  But  this  so- 
cial humiliation  which  he  experiences  in  cirfeles 
in  which  to  be  a  congressman  does  not  of  itself 
confer  distinction,  because  it  is  only  to  be  one 
among  many,  is  probably  not  to  be  compared 
with  the  chagrin  and  disappointment  which  come 
in  company  with  the  inevitable  discovery  that  he 
is  equally  without  weight  or  title  to  consideration 
in  the  House  itself.  No  man,  when  chosen  to  the 
membership  of  a  body  possessing  great  powers 
and  exalted  prerogatives,  likes  to  find  his  activity 
repressed,  and  himself  suppressed,  by  imperative 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.  63 

rules  and  precedents  which  seem  to  have  been 
framed  for  the  deliberate  purpose  of  making 
usefulness  unattainable  by  individual  members. 
Yet  such  the  new  member  finds  the  rules  and 
precedents  of  the  House  to  be.  It  matters  not 
to  him,  because  it  is  not  apparent  on  the  face 
of  things,  that  those  rules  and  precedents  have 
grown,  not  out  of  set  purpose  to  curtail  the 
privileges  of  new  members  as  such,  but  out  of 
the  plain  necessities  of  business ;  it  remains  the 
fact  that  he  suffers  under  their  curb,  and  it  is 
not  until  "  custom  hath  made  it  in  him  a  prop- 
erty of  easiness  "  that  he  submits  to  them  with 
anything  like  good  grace. 

Not  all  new  members  suffer  alike,  of  course, 
under  this  trying  discipline ;  because  it  is  not 
every  new  member  that  comes  to  his  seat  with 
serious  purposes  of  honest,  earnest,  and  duteous 
work.  There  are  numerous  tricks  and  subter- 
fuges, soon  learned  and  easily  used,  by  means  of 
which  the  most  idle  and  self-indulgent  members 
may  readily  make  such  show  of  exemplary  dili- 
gence as  will  quite  satisfy,  if  it  does  not  positively 
delight,  constituents  in  Buncombe.  But  the  num- 
ber of  congressmen  who  deliberately  court  use- 
lessness  and  counterfeit  well-doing  is  probably 
small.  The  great  majority  doubtless  have  a  keen 
enough  sense  of  their  duty,  and  a  sufficiently  un- 
hesitating desire  to  doit ;  and  it  may  safely  be 


64  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

taken  for  granted  that  the  zeal  of  new  members 
is  generally  hot  and  insistent.  If  it  be  not  hot 
to  begin  with,  it  is  like  to  become  so  by  reason 
of  friction  with  the  rules,  because  such  men 
must  inevitably  be  chafed  by  the  bonds  of  re- 
straint drawn  about  them  by  the  inexorable  ob- 
servances of  the  House. 

Often  the  new  member  goes  to  Washington  as 
the  representative  of  a  particular  line  of  policy, 
having  been  elected,  it  may  be,  as  an  advocate  of 
free  trade,  or  as  a  champion  of  protection ;  and 
it  is  naturally  his  first  care  upon  entering  on  his 
duties  to  seek  immediate  opportunity  for  the  ex- 
pression of  his  views  and  immediate  means  of 
giving  them  definite  shape  and  thrusting  them 
upon  the  attention  of  Congress.  His  disappoint- 
ment is,  therefore,  very  keen  when  he  finds  both 
opportunity  and  means  denied  him.  He  can  in- 
troduce his  bill ;  but  that  is  aU  he  can  do,  and 
he  must  do  that  at  a  particular  time  and  in  a 
particular  manner.  This  he  is  likely  to  learn 
through  rude  experience,  if  he  be  not  cautious 
to  inquire  beforehand  the  details  of  practice. 
He  is  likely  to  make  a  rash  start,  upon  the 
supposition  that  Congress  observes  the  ordinary 
rules  of  parliamentary  practice  to  which  he  has 
become  accustomed  in  the  debating  clubs  familiar 
to  his  youth,  and  in  the  mass-meetings  known  to 
his  later  experience.     His  bill  is  doubtless  ready 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.         65 

for  presentation  early  in  the  session,  and  some 
day,  taking  advantage  of  a  pause  in  the  proceed- 
ings, when  there  seems  to  be  no  business  before 
the  House,  he  rises  to  read  it  and  move  its  adop- 
tion. But  he  finds  getting  the  floor  an  arduous 
and  precarious  undertaking.  There  are  certain 
to  be  others  who  want  it  as  well  as  he  ;  and  his 
indignation  is  stirred  by  the  fact  that  the  Speaker 
does  not  so  much  as  turn  towards  him,  though  he 
must  have  heard  his  call,  but  recognizes  some 
one  else  readily  and  as  a  matter  of  course.  If 
he  be  obstreperous  and  persistent  in  his  cries  of 
"  Mr.  Speaker,"  he  may  get  that  great  func- 
tionary's attention  for  a  moment,  —  only  to  be 
told,  however,  that  he  is  out  of  order,  and  that 
his  bill  can  be  introduced  at  that  stage  only  by 
unanimous  consent :  immediately  there  are  me- 
chanically-uttered but  emphatic  exclamations  of 
objection,  and  he  is  forced  to  sit  down  confused 
and  disgusted.  He  has,  without  knowing  it,  ob- 
truded himself  in  the  way  of  the  "  regidar  order 
of  business,"  and  been  run  over  in  consequence, 
without  being  quite  clear  as  to  how  the  accident 
occurred. 

Moved  by  the  pain  and  discomfiture  of  this  first 
experience  to  respect,  if  not  to  fear,  the  rules,  the 
new  member  casts  about,  by  study  or  inquiry,  to 
find  out,  if  possible,  the  nature  and  occasion  of 
his  privileges.  He  learns  that  his  only  safe  day 
e 


66  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

is  Monday.  On  that  day  the  roll  of  the  States 
is  called,  and  members  may  introduce  bills  as 
their  States  are  reached  in  the  call.  So  on 
Monday  he  essays  another  bout  with  the  rules, 
confident  this  time  of  being  on  their  safe  side,  — 
but  mayhap  indiscreetly  and  unluckily  over-con- 
fident. For  if  he  supposes,  as  he  naturally  will, 
that  after  his  bill  has  been  sent  up  to  be  read  by 
the  clerk  he  may  say  a  few  words  in  its  behalf, 
and  in  that  belief  sets  out  upon  his  long-con- 
sidered remarks,  he  will  be  knocked  down  by  the 
rules  as  surely  as  he  was  on  the  first  occasion 
when  he  gained  the  floor  for  a  brief  moment. 
The  rap  of  Mr.  Speaker's  gavel  is  sharp,  imme- 
diate, and  peremptory.  He  is  curtly  informed 
that  no  debate  is  in  order ;  the  bill  can  only  be 
referred  to  the  appropriate  Committee. 

This  is,  indeed,  disheartening ;  it  is  his  first 
lesson  in  committee  government,  and  the  mas- 
ter's rod  smarts ;  but  the  sooner  he  learns  the 
prerogatives  and  powers  of  the  Standing  Com- 
mittees the  sooner  will  he  penetrate  the  mys- 
teries of  the  rules  and  avoid  the  pain  of  further 
contact  with  their  thorny  side.  The  privileges 
of  the  Standing  Committees  are  the  beginning 
and  the  end  of  the  rules.  Both  the  House  of 
Representatives  and  the  Senate  conduct  their 
business  by  what  may  figuratively,  but  not  inac- 
curately, be  called  an  odd  device  of  disintegra' 


THE  BOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.         67 

tion.  The  House  virtually  both  deliberates  and 
legislates  in  small  sections.  Time  would  fail  it 
to  discuss  all  the  bills  brought  in,  for  they  every 
session  number  thousands  ;  and  it  is  to  be 
doubted  whether,  even  if  time  allowed,  the  or- 
dinary processes  of  debate  and  amendment  would 
suffice  to  sift  the  chaff  from  the  wheat  in  the 
bushels  of  bills  every  week  piled  upon  the 
clerk's  desk.  Accordingly,  no  futile  attempt  is 
made  to  do  anything  of  the  kind.  The  work  is 
parceled  out,  most  of  it  to  the  forty-seven  Stand- 
ing Committees  which  constitute  the  regular  or- 
ganization of  the  House,  some  of  it  to  select 
committees  appointed  for  special  and  temporary 
purposes.  Each  of  the  almost  numberless  bills 
that  come  pouring  in  on  Mondays  is  "  read  a 
first  and  second  time,"  —  simply  perfunctorily 
read,  that  is,  by  its  title,  by  the  clerk,  and 
passed  by  silent  assent  through  its  first  formal 
courses,  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  it  to  the 
proper  stage  for  commitment,  —  and  referred 
without  debate  to  the  appropriate  Standing 
Committee.  Practically,  no  bill  escapes  com- 
mitment—  save,  of  course,  bills  introduced  by 
committees,  and  a  few  which  may  now  and  then 
be  crowded  through  under  a  suspension  of  the 
rules,  granted  by  a  two  -  thirds  vote  —  though 
the  exact  disposition  to  be  made  of  a  bill  is  not 
always  determined  easily  and  as  a  matter  of 


68  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

course.  Besides  the  great  Committee  of  Ways 
and  Means  and  the  equally  great  Committee  on 
Appropriations,  there  are  Standing  Committees 
on  Banking  and  Currency,  on  Claims,  on  Com- 
merce, on  the  Public  Lands,  on  Post-Offices  and 
Post-Roads,  on  the  Judiciary,  on  Public  Expendi- 
tures, on  Manufactures,  on  Agriculture,  on  Mili- 
tary Affairs,  on  Naval  Affairs,  on  Mines  and 
Mining,  on  Education  and  Labor,  on  Patents,  and 
on  a  score  of  other  branches  of  legislative  con- 
cern ;  but  careful  and  differential  as  is  the  top- 
ical division  of  the  subjects  of  legislation  which 
is  represented  in  the  titles  of  these  Committees, 
it  is  not  always  evident  to  which  Committee  each 
particular  bill  should  go.  Many  bills  affect 
subjects  which  may  be  regarded  as  lying  as 
properly  within  the  jurisdiction  of  one  as  of 
another  of  the  Committees ;  for  no  hard  and  fast 
lines  separate  the  various  classes  of  business 
which  the  Committees  are  commissioned  to  take 
in  charge.  Their  jurisdictions  overlap  at  many 
points,  and  it  must  frequently  happen  that  bills 
are  read  which  cover  just  this  common  ground. 
Over  the  commitment  of  such  bills  sharp  and 
interesting  skirmishes  often  take  place.  There 
is  active  competition  for  them,  the  ordinary, 
quiet  routine  of  matter-of-course  reference  being 
interrupted  by  rival  motions  seeking  to  give 
very  different  directions  to  the  disposition  to  be 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.         69 

made  of  them.  To  which  Committee  should  a 
bill  "  to  fix  and  establish  the  maximum  rates  of 
fares  of  the  Union  Pacific  and  Central  Pacific 
Railroads  "  be  sent, — to  the  Committee  on  Com- 
merce or  to  the  Committee  on  the  Pacific  Rail- 
roads ?  Should  a  bill  which  prohibits  the  mail- 
ing of  certain  classes  of  letters  and  circulars  go 
to  the  Committee  on  Post-OfiSces  and  Post-Roads, 
because  it  relates  to  the  mails,  or  to  the  Commit- 
tee on  the  Judiciary,  because  it  proposes  to  make 
any  transgression  of  its  prohibition  a  crime? 
What  is  the  proper  disposition  of  any  bill  which 
thus  seems  to  lie  within  two  distinct  committee 
jurisdictions  ? 

The  fate  of  bills  committed  is  generally  not 
uncertain.  As  a  rule,  a  bill  committed  is  a  bill 
doomed.  When  it  goes  from  the  clerk's  desk 
to  a  committee-room  it  crosses  a  parliamentary 
bridge  of  sighs  to  dim  dungeons  of  silence  whence 
it  will  never  return.  The  means  and  time  of  its 
death  are  unknown,  but  its  friends  never  see  it 
again.  Of  course  no  Standing  Committee  is 
privileged  to  take  upon  itself  the  full  powers  of 
the  House  it  represents,  and  formally  and  deci- 
sively reject  a  bill  referred  to  it ;  its  disapproval, 
if  it  disapproves,  must  be  reported  to  the  House 
in  the  form  of  a  recommendation  that  the  bill 
"  do  not  pass."  But  it  is  easy,  and  therefore  com- 
mon, to  let  the  session  pass  without  making  any 


70  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

report  at  all  upon  bills  deemed  objectionable  or 
unimportant,  and  to  substitute  for  reports  upon 
them  a  few  bills  of  the  Committee's  own  draft- 
ing ;  so  that  thousands  of  bills  expire  with  the 
expiration  of  each  Congress,  not  having  been 
rejected,  but  having  been  simply  neglected. 
There  was  not  time  to  report  upon  them. 

Of  course  it  goes  without  saying  that  the  prac- 
tical effect  of  this  Committee  organization  of 
the  House  is  to  consign  to  each  of  the  Standing 
Committees  the  entire  direction  of  legislation 
upon  those  subjects  which  properly  come  to  its 
consideration.  As  to  those  subjects  it  is  entitled 
to  the  initiative,  and  all  legislative  action  with 
regard  to  them  is  under  its  overruling  guidance. 
It  gives  shape  and  course  to  the  determinations 
of  the  House.  In  one  respect,  however,  its  ini- 
tiative is  limited.  Even  a  Standing  Committee 
cannot  report  a  bill  whose  subject-matter  has 
not  been  referred  to  it  by  the  House,  "  by  the 
rules  or  otherwise  ; "  it  cannot  volunteer  advice 
on  questions  upon  which  its  advice  has  not  been 
asked.  But  this  is  not  a  serious,  not  even  an 
operative,  limitation  upon  its  functions  of  sug- 
gestion and  leadership ;  for  it  is  a  very  simple 
matter  to  get  referred  to  it  any  subject  it  wishes 
to  introduce  to  the  attention  of  the  House.  Its 
chairman,  or  one  of  its  leading  members,  frames 
a  bill  covering  the  point  upon  which  the  Com- 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.         71 

mittee  wishes  to  suggest  legislation ;  brings  it 
in,  in  his  capacity  as  a  private  member,  on 
Monday,  when  the  call  of  States  is  made ;  has  it 
referred  to  his  Committee ;  and  thus  secures  an 
opportunity  for  the  making  of  the  desired  re- 
port. 

It  is  by  this  imperious  authority  of  the  Stand" 
ing  Committees  that  the  new  member  is  stayed 
and  thwarted  whenever  he  seeks  to  take  an  ac- 
tive part  in  the  business  of  the  House.  Turn 
which  way  he  may,  some  privilege  of  the  Com- 
mittees stands  in  his  path.  The  rules  are  so 
framed  as  to  put  all  business  under  their  man- 
agement ;  and  one  of  the  discoveries  which  the 
new  member  is  sure  to  make,  albeit  after  many 
trying  experiences  and  sobering  adventures  and 
as  his  first  session  draws  towards  its  close,  is, 
that  under  their  sway  freedom  of  debate  finds 
no  place  of  allowance,  and  that  his  long-delayed 
speech  must  remain  unspoken.  For  even  a  long 
congressional  session  is  too  short  to  afford  time 
for  a  full  consideration  of  all  the  reports  of  the 
forty-seven  Committees,  and  debate  upon  them 
must  be  rigidly  cut  short,  if  not  altogether  ex- 
cluded, if  any  considerable  part  of  the  necessary 
business  is  to  be  gotten  through  with  before  ad- 
journment. There  are  some  subjects  to  which 
the  House  must  always  give  prompt  attention ; 
therefore  reports  from  the  Committees  on  Print- 


r2  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

ing  and  on  Elections  are  always  in  order ;  and 
there  are  some  subjects  to  which  careful  con- 
sideration must  always  be  accorded;  therefore 
the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  and  the  Com- 
mittee on  Appropriations  are  clothed  with  ex- 
traordinary privileges  ;  and  revenue  and  supply 
bills  may  be  reported,  and  will  ordinarily  be  con- 
sidered, at  any  time.  But  these  four  are  the  only 
specially  licensed  Committees.  The  rest  must 
take  their  turns  in  fixed  order  as  they  are  called 
on  by  the  Speaker,  contenting  themselves  with 
such  crmnbs  of  time  as  fall  from  the  tables  of 
the  four  Committees  of  highest  prerogative. 

Senator  Hoar,  of  Massachusetts,  whose  long 
congressional  experience  entitles  him  to  speak 
with  authority,  calculates  ^  that,  "  supposing  the 
two  sessions  which  make  up  the  life  of  the 
House  to  last  ten  months,"  most  of  the  Commit- 
tees have  at  their  disposal  during  each  Con- 
gress but  two  hours  apiece  in  which  "  to  report 
upon,  debate,  and  dispose  of  all  the  subjects  of 
general  legislation  committed  to  their  charge." 
For  of  course  much  time  is  wasted.  No  Con- 
gress gets  immediately  to  work  upon  its  first  as- 
sembling. It  has  its  officers  to  elect,  and  after 
their  election  some  time  must  elapse  before  its 

^  In  an  article  entitled  "  The  Conduct  of  Business  in  Con- 
gress" (North  American  Review,  vol.  cxxviii.  p.  ll-i),  to  which 
I  am  indebted  for  many  details  of  the  sketch  in  the  text. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.  73 

organization  is  finally  completed  by  the  appoint- 
ment of  the  Committees.  It  adjourns  for  holi- 
days, too,  and  generally  spares  itself  long  sittings. 
Besides,  there  are  many  things  to  interrupt  the 
call  of  the  Committees  upon  which  most  of  the 
business  waits.  That  call  can  proceed  only  dur- 
ing the  morning  hours,  —  the  hours  just  after 
the  reading  of  the  "Journal,"  —  on  Tuesdays, 
Wednesdays,  and  Thursdays  ;  and  even  then  it 
may  suffer  postponement  because  of  the  unfin- 
ished business  of  the  previous  day  which  is  enti- 
tled to  first  consideration.  The  call  cannot  pro- 
ceed on  Mondays  because  the  morning  hour  of 
Mondays  is  devoted  invariably  to  the  call  of  the 
States  for  the  introduction  of  bills  and  resolu- 
tions ;  nor  on  Fridays,  for  Friday  is  "  private 
bill  day,"  and  is  always  engrossed  by  the  Com- 
mittee on  Claims,  or  by  other  fathers  of  bills 
which  have  gone  upon  the  "  private  calendar." 
On  Saturdays  the  House  seldom  sits. 

The  reports  made  during  these  scant  morning 
hours  are  ordered  to  be  printed,  for  future  con- 
sideration in  their  turn,  and  the  bills  introduced 
by  the  Committees  are  assigned  to  the  proper 
calendars,  to  be  taken  up  in  order  at  the  proper 
time.  When  a  morning  hour  has  run  out,  the 
House  hastens  to  proceed  with  the  business  on 
the  Speaker's  table. 

These  are  some  of  the  plainer  points  of  the 


74  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

rules.  They  are  full  of  complexity,  and  of  con- 
fusion to  the  uninitiated,  and  the  confusions  of 
practice  are  greater  than  the  confusions  of  the 
rules.  For  the  regular  order  of  business  is  con- 
stantly being  interrupted  by  the  introduction 
of  resolutions  offered  "  by  unanimous  consent," 
and  of  bills  let  in  under  a  "  suspension  of  the 
rules."  Still,  it  is  evident  that  there  is  one 
principle  which  runs  through  every  stage  of  pro- 
cedure, and  which  is  never  disallowed  or  abro- 
gated, —  the  principle  that  the  Committees  shall 
rule  without  let  or  hindrance.  And  this  is  a 
principle  of  extraordinary  formative  power.  It 
is  the  mould  of  all  legislation.  In  the  first 
place,  the  speeding  of  business  under  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Committees  determines  the  character 
and  the  amount  of  the  discussion  to  which  legis- 
lation shall  be  subjected.  The  House  is  con- 
scious that  time  presses.  It  knows  that,  hurry 
as  it  may,  it  will  hardly  get  through  with  one 
eighth  of  the  business  laid  out  for  the  session, 
and  that  to  pause  for  lengthy  debate  is  to  allow 
the  arrears  to  accumulate.  Besides,  most  of  the 
members  are  individually  anxious  to  expedite 
action  on  every  pending  measure,  because  each 
member  of  the  House  is  a  member  of  one  or 
more  of  the  Standing  Committees,  and  is  quite 
naturally  desirous  that  the  bills  prepared  by  his 
Committees,  and  in  which  he  is,  of  course,  spe- 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.         75 

cially  interested  by  reason  of  the  particular  at- 
tention which  he  has  been  compelled  to  give 
them,  should  reach  a  hearing  and  a  vote  as  sool. 
as  possible.  It  must,  therefore,  invariably  hap- 
pen that  the  Committee  holding  the  floor  at  anj 
particular  time  is  the  Committee  whose  proposals 
the  majority  wish  to  dispose  of  as  summarily  as 
circumstances  will  allow,  in  order  that  the  rest  of 
the  forty-two  unprivileged  Committees  to  which 
the  majority  belong  may  gain  the  earlier  and  the 
fairer  chance  of  a  hearing.  A  reporting  Com- 
mittee, besides,  is  generally  as  glad  to  be  pushed 
as  the  majority  are  to  push  it.  It  probably  has 
several  bills  matured,  and  wishes  to  see  them 
disposed  of  before  its  brief  hours  of  oppor- 
tunity^ are  passed  and  gone. 

Consequently,  it  is  the  established  custom  of 
the  House  to  accord  the  floor  for  one  hour  to 
the  member  of  the  reporting  Committee  who  has 
charge  of  the  business  under  consideration  ;  and 
that  hour  is  made  the^  chief  hour  of  debate. 
The  reporting  committee-man  seldom,  if  ever, 
uses  the  whole  of  the  hour  himself  for  his  open- 
ing remarks ;  he  uses  part  of  it,  and  retains  con- 

1  No  Committee  is  entitled,  when  called,  to  occupy  more 
than  the  morning  hours  of  two  successive  days  with  the  meas- 
ures which  it  has  prepared ;  though  if  its  second  morning  hour 
expire  while  the  House  is  actually  considering  one  of  its  bills, 
that  single  measure  may  hold  over  from  morning  hour  to 
morning  hour  until  it  is  disposed  of. 


76  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

trol  of  the  rest  of  it ;  for  by  undisputed  privilege 
it  is  his  to  dispose  of,  whether  he  himself  be  upon 
the  floor  or  not.  No  amendment  is  in  order 
during  that  hour,  unless  he  consent  to  its  pres- 
entation ;  and  he  does  not,  of  course,  yield  his 
time  indiscriminately  to  any  one  who  wishes  to 
speak.  He  gives  way,  indeed,  as  in  fairness  he 
should,  to  opponents  as  well  as  to  friends  of  the 
measure  under  his  charge  ;  but  generally  no  one 
is  accorded  a  share  of  his  time  who  has  not  ob- 
tained his  previous  promise  of  the  floor;  and 
those  who  do  speak  must  not  run  beyond  the 
number  of  minutes  he  has  agreed  to  allow  them. 
He  keeps  the  course  both  of  debate  and  of 
amendment  thus  carefully  under  his  own  super- 
vision, as  a  good  tactician,  and  before  he  finally 
yields  the  floor,  at  the  expiration  of  his  hour,  he 
is  sure  to  move  the  previous  question.  To  neg- 
lect to  do  so  would  be  to  lose  all  control  of  the 
business  in  hand ;  for  unless  the  previous  ques- 
tion is  ordered  the  debate  may  run  on  at  will, 
and  his  Committee's  chance  for  getting  its  meas- 
ures through  slip  quite  away ;  and  that  would 
be  nothing  less  than  his  disgrace.  He  would  be 
all  the  more  blameworthy  because  he  had  but 
to  ask  for  the  previous  question  to  get  it.  As  I 
have  said,  the  House  is  as  eager  to  hurry  busi- 
ness as  he  can  be,  and  will  consent  to  almost  any 
limitation  of  discussion  that  he  may  demand; 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.         77 

though,  probably,  if  he  were  to  throw  the  reins 
upon  its  neck,  it  would  run  at  large  from  very 
wantonness,  in  scorn  of  such  a  driver.  The  pre- 
vious question  once  ordered,  all  amendments  are 
precluded,  and  one  hour  remains  for  the  sum* 
ming-up  of  this  same  privileged  committee-man 
before  the  final  vote  is  taken  and  the  bill  dis- 
posed of. 

These  are  the  customs  which  baffle  and  per- 
plex and  astound  the  new  member.  In  these 
precedents  and  usages,  when  at  length  he  comes 
to  understand  them,  the  novice  spies  out  the 
explanation  of  the  fact,  once  so  confounding  and 
seemingly  inexplicable,  that  when  he  leaped  to 
his  feet  to  claim  the  floor  other  members  who 
rose  after  him  were  coolly  and  unfeelingly  pre- 
ferred before  him  by  the  Speaker.  Of  course  it 
is  plain  enough  now  that  Mr.  Speaker  knew  be- 
forehand to  whom  the  representative  of  the  re» 
porting  Committee  had  agreed  to  yield  the  floor ; 
and  it  was  no  use  for  any  one  else  to  cry  out  for 
recognition.  Whoever  wished  to  speak  should, 
if  possible,  have  made  some  arrangement  with 
the  Committee  before  the  business  came  to  a 
hearing,  and  should  have  taken  care  to  notify 
Mr.  Speaker  that  he  was  to  be  granted  the  floor 
for  a  few  moments. 

Unquestionably  this,  besides  being  a  very  in. 
teresting,  is  a  very  novel  and  significant  method 


78  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

of  restricting  debate  and  expediting  legislative 
action,  —  a  method  of  very  serious  import,  and 
obviously  fraught  with  far-reaching  constitu- 
tional effects.  The  practices  of  debate  which 
prevail  in  its  legislative  assembly  are  manifestly 
of  the  utmost  importance  to  a  self-governing 
people  ;  for  that  legislation  which  is  not  thor- 
oughly discussed  by  the  legislating  body  is  prac- 
tically done  in  a  comer.  It  is  impossible  for 
Congress  itself  to  do  wisely  what  it  does  so  hur- 
riedly ;  and  the  constituencies  cannot  understand 
what  Congress  does  not  itself  stop  to  consider. 
The  prerogatives  of  the  Committees  represent 
something  more  than  a  mere  convenient  division 
of  labor.  There  is  only  one  part  of  its  business 
to  which  Congress,  as  a  whole,  attends,  —  that 
part,  namely,  which  is  embraced  imder  the  priv- 
ileged subjects  of  revenue  and  supply.  The 
House  ne\er  accepts  the  proposals  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  Ways  and  Means,  or  of  the  Committee 
on  Appropriations,  without  due  deliberation ; 
but  it  allows  almost  all  of  its  other  Standing 
Committees  virtually  to  legislate  for  it.  In  form, 
the  Committees  only  digest  the  various  matter 
introduced  by  individual  members,  and  prepare 
it,  with  care,  and  after  thorough  investigation, 
for  the  final  consideration  and  action  of  the 
House  ;  but,  in  reality,  they  dictate  the  course 
to  be  taken,  prescribing  the   decisions  of   the 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.        79, 

House  not  only,  but  measuring  out,  according  to 
their  own  wills,  its  opportunities  for  debate  and 
deliberation  as  well.  The  House  sits,  not  for 
serious  discussion,  but  to  sanction  the  conclu- 
sions of  its  Committees  as  rapidly  as  possible. 
It  legislates  in  its  committee-rooms ;  not  by  the 
determinations  of  majorities,  but  by  the  resolu- 
tions of  specially -commissioned  minorities;  so 
that  it  is  not  far  from  the  truth  to  say  that  Con- 
gress in  session  is  Congress  on  public  exhibition, 
whilst  Congress  in  its  committee-rooms  is  Con- 
gress at  work. 

Habit  grows  fast,  even  upon  the  unconven- 
tional American,  and  the  nature  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  has,  by  long  custom,  been 
shaped  to  the  spirit  of  its  rules.  Representa- 
tives have  attained,  by  rigorous  self-discipline,  to 
the  perfect  stature  of  the  law  under  which  they 
live,  having  purged  their  hearts  as  completely 
as  may  be  of  all  desire  to  do  that  which  it  is  the 
chief  object  of  that  law  to  forbid  by  giving  over 
a  vain  lust  after  public  discussion.  The  entire 
absence  of  the  instinct  of  debate  amongst  them, 
and  their  apparent  unfamiliarity  with  the  idea 
of  combating  a  proposition  by  argument,  was 
recently  illustrated  by  an  incident  which  was 
quite  painfully  amusing.  The  democratic  ma- 
jority of  the  House  of  the  Forty -eighth  Con- 
gress desired  the  immediate  passage  of  a  pension 


80  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

bill  of  rather  portentous  proportions ;  but  the 
republican  minority  disapproved  of  the  bill 
with  great  fervor,  and,  when  it  was  moved  by 
the  Pension  Committee,  late  one  afternoon,  in  a 
thin  House,  that  the  rules  be  suspended,  and  an 
early  day  set  for  a  consideration  of  the  bill,  the 
Republicans  addressed  themselves  to  determined 
and  persistent  "  filibustering  "  to  prevent  action. 
First  they  refused  to  vote,  leaving  the  Demo- 
crats without  an  acting  quorum ;  then,  all  night 
long,  they  kept  the  House  at  roll-calling  on  dila- 
tory and  obstructive  motions,  the  dreary  drag- 
ging of  the  time  being  relieved  occasionally  by 
the  amusement  of  hearing  the  excuses  of  mem- 
bers who  had  tried  to  slip  off  to  bed,  or  by  the 
excitement  of  an  angry  dispute  between  the 
leaders  of  the  two  parties  as  to  the  responsibility 
for  the  dead-lock.  Not  till  the  return  of  morn- 
ing brought  in  the  delinquents  to  recruit  the 
democratic  ranks  did  business  advance  a  single 
step.  Now,  the  noteworthy  fact  about  this  re- 
markable scene  is,  that  the  minority  were  not 
manoeuvring  to  gain  opportunity  or  time  for 
debate,  in  order  that  the  country  might  be  in- 
formed of  the  true  nature  of  the  obnoxious  bill, 
but  were  simply  fighting  a  preliminary  motion 
with  silent,  dogged  obstruction.  After  the  whole 
night  had  been  spent  in  standing  out  against  ac- 
tion, the  House  is  said  to  have  been  "  in  no  mood 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.        81 

for  the  thirty  -  minutes'  debate  allowed  by  the 
rules,"  and  a  final  vote  was  taken,  with  only  a 
word  or  two  said.  It  was  easier  and  more  nat- 
ural, as  everybody  saw,  to  direct  attention  to 
the  questionable  character  of  what  was  being 
attempted  by  the  majority  by  creating  a  some- 
what scandalous  "  scene,"  of  which  every  one 
would  talk,  than  by  making  speeches  which  no- 
body would  read.  It  was  a  notable  commentary 
on  the  characteristic  methods  of  our  system  of 
congressional  government. 

One  very  noteworthy  result  of  this  system  is 
to  shift  the  theatre  of  debate  upon  legislation 
from  the  floor  of  Congress  to  the  privacy  of  the 
committee  -  rooms.  Provincial  gentlemen  who 
read  the  Associated  Press  dispatches  in  their 
morning  papers  as  they  sit  over  their  coffee  at 
breakfast  are  doubtless  often  very  sorely  puz- 
zled by  certain  of  the  items  which  sometimes 
appear  in  the  brief  telegraphic  notes  from  Wash- 
ington. What  can  they  make  of  this  for  in- 
stance :  "  The  House  Committee  on  Commerce 
to-day  heard  arguments  from  the  congressional 
delegation  from"  such  and  such  States  "in  ad- 
vocacy of  appropriations  for  river  and  harboi 
improvements  which  the  members  desire  incor- 
porated in  the  River  and  Harbor  Appropriations* 
Bill "  ?  They  probably  do  not  understand  that 
it  woidd  have  been  useless  for  members  not  of 
6 


82  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

the  Committee  on  Commerce  to  wait  for  any  op« 
portunity  to  make  their  suggestions  on  the  floor 
of  Congress,  where  the  measure  to  which  they 
wish  to  make  additions  would  be  under  the  au- 
thoritative control  of  the  Committee,  and  where, 
consequently,  they  could  gain  a  hearing  only  by 
the  courteous  sufferance  of  the  committee-man 
in  charge  of  the  report.  Whatever  is  to  be  done 
must  be  done  by  or  through  the  Committee. 

It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  practically  Con- 
gress, or  at  any  rate  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, delegates  not  only  its  legislative  but  also  its 
deliberative  functions  to  its  Standing  Commit- 
tees. The  little  public  debate  that  arises  under 
the  stringent  and  urgent  rules  of  the  House  is 
formal  rather  than  effective,  and  it  is  the  discus- 
sions which  take  place  in  the  Committees  that 
give  form  to  legislation.  Undoubtedly  these 
siftings  of  legislative  questions  by  the  Commit- 
tees are  of  great  value  in  enabling  the  House  to 
obtain  "  undarkened  counsel  "  and  intelligent 
suggestions  from  authoritative  sources.  All  so- 
ber, purposeful,  business-like  talk  upon  ques- 
tions of  public  policy,  whether  it  take  place  in 
Congress  or  only  before  the  Committees  of  Con- 
gress, is  of  great  value ;  and  the  controversies 
which  spring  up  in  the  committee-rooms,  both 
amonffst  the  committee-men  themselves  and  be- 
tween  those  who  appear  before  the  Committees 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.         83 

as  advocates  of  special  measures,  cannot  but  con- 
tribute to  add  clearness  and  definite  consistency 
to  the  reports  submitted  to  the  House. 

There  are,  however,  several  very  obvious  rea- 
sons why  the  most  thorough  canvass  of  business 
by  the  Committees,  and  the  most  exhaustive  and 
discriminating  discussion  of  all  its  details  in 
their  rooms,  cannot  take  the  place  or  fulfill  the 
uses  of  amendment  and  debate  by  Congress  in 
open  session.  In  the  first  place,  the  proceedings 
of  the  Committees  are  private  and  their  discus- 
sions unpublished.  The  chief,  and  unquestion- 
ably the  most  essential,  object  of  all  discussion 
of  public  business  is  the  enlightenment  of  public 
opinion  ;  and  of  course,  since  it  cannot  hear  the 
debates  of  the  Committees,  the  nation  is  not  apt 
to  be  much  instructed  by  them.  Only  the  Com- 
mittees are  enlightened.  There  is  a  conclusive 
objection  to  the  publication  of  the  proceedings 
of  the  Committees,  which  is  recognized  as  of 
course  by  all  parliamentary  lawyers,  namely, 
that  those  proceedings  are  of  no  force  till  con- 
firmed by  the  House.  A  Committee  is  commis- 
sioned, not  to  instruct  the  public,  but  to  instruct 
and  guide  the  House. 

Indeed  it  is  not  usual  for  the  Committees  to 
open  their  sittings  often  to  those  who  desire  to 
be  heard  with  regard  to  pending  questions  ;  and 
no  one  can  demand  a  hearing  as  of  right.     On 


84  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

the  contrary,  they  are  privileged  and  accustomed 
to  hold  their  sessions  in  absolute  secrecy.  It  is 
made  a  breach  of  order  for  any  member  to  al- 
lude on  the  floor  of  the  House  to  anything  that 
has  taken  place  in  committee,  "  unless  by  a  writ- 
ten report  sanctioned  by  a  majority  of  the  Com- 
mittee ;  "  and  there  is  no  place  in  the  regular 
order  of  business  for  a  motion  instructing  a 
Committee  to  conduct  its  investigations  with 
open  doors.  Accordingly,  it  is  only  by  the  con- 
cession of  the  Committees  that  arguments  are 
made  before  them. 

When  they  do  suffer  themselves  to  be  ap- 
proached, moreover,  they  generally  extend  the 
leave  to  others  besides  their  fellow- congressmen. 
The  Committee  on  Commerce  consents  to  listen 
to  prominent  railroad  officials  upon  the  subject 
of  the  regulation  of  freight  charges  and  fares  ; 
and  scores  of  interested  persons  telegraph  in- 
quiries to  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  of 
Ways  and  Means  as  to  the  time  at  which  they 
are  to  be  permitted  to  present  to  the  Commit- 
tee their  views  upon  the  revision  of  the  tariff. 
The  speeches  made  before  the  Committees  at 
their  open  sessions  are,  therefore,  scarcely  of 
such  a  kind  as  would  be  instructive  to  the 
public,  and  on  that  accoimt  worth  publishing. 
They  are  as  a  rule  the  pleas  of  special  pleaders, 
the  arguments  of  advocates.     They  have  about 


THE  BOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.         85 

them  none  of  the  searching,  critical,  illuminating 
character  of  the  higher  order  of  parliamentary 
debate,  in  which  men  are  pitted  against  each 
other  as  equals,  and  urged  to  sharp  contest  and 
masterful  strife  by  the  inspiration  of  political 
principle  and  personal  ambition,  through  the  ri- 
valry of  parties  and  the  competition  of  policies. 
They  represent  a  joust  between  antagonistic  in- 
terests, not  a  contest  of  principles.  They  could 
scarcely  either  inform  or  elevate  public  opinion, 
even  if  they  were  to  obtain  its  heed. 

For  the  instruction  and  elevation  of  public 
opinion,  in  regard  to  national  affairs,  there  is 
needed  something  more  than  special  pleas  for 
special  privileges.  There  is  needed  public  dis- 
cussion of  a  peculiar  sort :  a  discussion  by  the 
sovereign  legislative  body  itself,  a  discussion  in 
which  every  feature  of  each  mooted  point  of  pol- 
icy shall  be  distinctly  brought  out,  and  every 
argument  of  significance  pushed  to  the  farthest 
point  of  insistence,  by  recognized  leaders  in  that 
body ;  and,  above  all,  a  discussion  upon  which 
something  —  something  of  interest  or  importance, 
some  pressing  question  of  administration  or  of 
law,  the  fate  of  a  party  or  the  success  of  a  con- 
spicuous politician  —  evidently  depends.  It  is 
only  a  discussion  of  this  sort  that  the  public  will 
heed  ;  no  other  sort  will  impress  it. 

There  could,  therefore,  be  no  more  unwelcome 


86  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

revelation  to  one  who  has  anything  approaching 
a,  statesman  -  like  appreciation  of  the  essential 
conditions  of  intelligent  self-government  than 
just  that  which  must  inevitably  be  made  to  every 
one  who  candidly  examines  our  congressional 
system  ;  namely,  that,  under  that  system,  such 
discussion  is  impossible.  There  are,  to  begin 
with,  physical  and  architectural  reasons  why 
business-like  debate  of  public  affairs  by  the 
House  of  Representatives  is  out  of  the  question. 
To  those  who  visit  the  galleries  of  the  represen- 
tative chamber  during  a  session  of  the  House 
these  reasons  are  as  obvious  as  they  are  aston- 
ishing. It  would  be  natural  to  expect  that  a 
body  which  meets  ostensibly  for  consultation 
and  deliberation  should  hold  its  sittings  in  a 
•  room  small  enough  to  admit  of  an  easy  inter- 
change of  views  and  a  ready  concert  of  action, 
where  its  members  would  be  brought  into  close, 
sympathetic  contact ;  and  it  is  nothing  less  than 
astonishing  to  find  it  spread  at  large  through  the 
vast  spaces  of  such  a  chamber  as  the  hall  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  where  there  are  no 
close  ranks  of  cooperating  parties,  but  each 
member  has  a  roomy  desk  and  an  easy  revolv- 
ing chair ;  where  broad  aisles  spread  and  stretch 
themselves ;  where  ample,  soft-carpeted  areas  lie 
about  the  spacious  desks  of  the  Speaker  and 
clerks ;  where  deep  galleries  reach  back  from  the 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.         87 

outer  limits  of  the  wide  passages  which  lie  be- 
yond "  the  bar  "  :  an  immense,  capacious  cham- 
ber, disposing  its  giant  dimensions  freely  beneath 
the  great  level  lacunar  ceiling  through  whose 
glass  panels  the  full  light  of  day  pours  in.  The 
most  vivid  impression  the  visitor  gets  in  looking 
over  that  vast  hall  is  the  impression  of  space. 
A  speaker  must  needs  have  a  voice  like  O'Con- 
nell's,  the  practical  visitor  is  apt  to  think,  as  he 
sits  in  the  gallery,  to  fill  even  the  silent  spaces 
of  that  room ;  how  much  more  to  overcome  the 
disorderly  noises  that  buzz  and  rattle  through  it 
when  the  representatives  are  assembled,  —  a  voice 
clear,  sonorous,  dominant,  like  the  voice  of  a 
clarion.  One  who  speaks  there  with  the  voice 
and  lungs  of  the  ordinary  mortal  must  content 
himself  with  the  audience  of  those  members  in 
his  own  immediate  neighborhood,  whose  ears  he 
rudely  assails  in  vehement  efforts  to  command 
the  attention  of  those  beyond  them,  and  who, 
therefore,  cannot  choose  but  hear  him. 

It  is  of  this  magnitude  of  the  hall  of  the  rep- 
resentatives that  those  news  telegrams  are  sig- 
nificant which  speak  of  an  interesting  or  witty 
speech  in  Congress  as  having  drawn  about  the 
speaker  listeners  from  all  parts  of  the  House. 
As  one  of  our  most  noted  wits  would  say,  a 
member  must  needs  take  a  Sabbath  day's  jour- 
ney to  get  within  easy  hearing  distance  of  a 


88  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

speaker  who  is  addressing  the  House  from  the 
opposite  side  of  the  hall ;  for  besides  the  space 
there  are  the  noises  intervening,  the  noises  of 
loud  talking  and  of  the  clapping  of  hands  for 
the  pages,  making  the  task  of  the  member  who 
is  speaking  "  very  like  trying  to  address  the 
people  in  the  omnibuses  from  the  curbstone  in 
front  of  the  Astor  House."  ^ 

But  these  physical  limitations  to  debate, 
though  serious  and  real,  are  amongst  the  least 
important,  because  they  are  amongst  the  least 
insuperable.  If  effective  and  business-like  pub- 
lic discussions  were  considered  indispensable  by 
Congress,  or  even  desirable,  the  present  cham- 
ber could  readily  be  divided  into  two  halls :  the 
one  a  commodious  reading-room  where  the  mem- 
bers might  chat  and  write  at  ease  as  they  now 
do  in  the  House  itself ;  and  the  other  a  smaller 
room  suitable  for  debate  and  earnest  business. 
This,  in  fact,  has  been  several  times  proposed, 
but  the  House  does  not  feel  that  there  is  any 
urgency  about  providing  facilities  for  debate, 
because  it  sees  no  reason  to  desire  an  increase  of 
speech-making,  in  view  of  the  fact  that,  notwith- 
standing all  the  limitations  now  put  upon  discus- 
sion, its  business  moves  much  too  slowly.     The 

1  Quoted  from  an  exceedingly  life-like  and  picturesque  de- 
scription of  the  House  which  appeared  in  the  New  York  N» 
Uon  for  April  4, 1878. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.  89 

early  Congresses  had  time  to  talk ;  Congresses 
of  to-day  have  not.  Before  that  wing  of  the 
Capitol  was  built  in  which  the  representative 
chamber  now  is,  the  House  used  to  sit  in  the 
much  smaller  room,  now  empty  save  for  the  stat- 
uary to  whose  exhibition  it  is  devoted  ;  and  there 
much  speech-making  went  on  from  day  to  day; 
there  Calhoun  and  Randolph  and  Webster  and 
Clay  won  their  reputations  as  statesmen  and 
orators.  So  earnest  and  interesting  were  the 
debates  of  those  days,  indeed,  that  the  principal 
speeches  delivered  in  Congress  seem  to  have 
been  usually  printed  at  length  in  the  metro- 
politan journals.^  But  the  number  and  leng-th 
of  the  speeches  was  even  then  very  much  de- 
plored; and  so  early  as  1828  a  writer  in  the 
"  North  American  Review  "  condemns  what  he 
calls  "  the  habit  of  congressional  debating,"  with 
the  air  of  one  who  speaks  against  some  abuse 
which  every  one  acknowledges  to  be  a  nuisance.^ 
Eleven  years  later  a  contributor  to  the  "  Demo- 
cratic Review "  ^  declared  that  it  had  "  been 
gravely  charged  upon  "  Mr.  Samuel  Cushman, 
then  a  member  of  the  Twenty-fifth  Congress  from 
New  Hampshire,  "  that  he  moves  the  previous 
question.      Truly,"  continues  the  essayist,  "  he 

^  No.  Am.  Rev.,  vol.  xxvi.,  p.  162. 

2  Id.,  the  same  article. 

8  "  Glances  at  Congress,"  Dem.  Rev.,  March,  1839. 


90  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

does,  and  for  that  very  service,  if  he  had  never 
done  anything  else,  he  deserves  a  monument  as 
a  public  benefactor.  One  man  who  can  arrest 
a  tedious,  long-winded,  factious,  time-killing  de- 
bate, is  worth  forty  who  can  provoke  or  keep 
one  up.  It  requires  some  moral  courage,  some 
spirit,  and  some  tact  also,  to  move  the  previous 
question,  and  to  move  it,  too,  at  precisely  the 
right  point  of  time." 

This  ardent  and  generous  defense  of  Mr.  Cush- 
man  against  the  odious  accusation  of  moving  the 
previous  question  would  doubtless  be  exquisitely 
amusing  to  the  chairman  of  one  of  the  Standing 
Committees  of  the  Forty -eighth  Congress,  to 
whom  the  previous  question  seems  one  of  the 
commonest  necessities  of  life.  But,  after  all, 
he  ought  not  to  laugh  at  the  ingenuous  essayist, 
for  that  was  not  the  heyday  of  the  rules  ;  they 
then  simply  served  and  did  not  tyrannize  over 
the  House.  They  did  not  then  have  the  oppor- 
tunity of  empire  afforded  them  by  the  scantiness 
of  time  which  hurries  the  House,  and  the  weight 
of  business  which  oppresses  it ;  and  they  were 
at  a  greater  disadvantage  in  a  room  where  ora- 
tory was  possible  than  they  are  in  a  vast  cham- 
ber where  the  orator's  voice  is  drowned  amidst 
the  noises  of  disorderly  inattention.  Nowadays 
would-be  debaters  are  easily  thrust  out  of  Con- 
gress and  forced  to  resort  to  the  printing-office; 


TEE  HOUSE   OF  REPRESENTATIVES.  91 

are  compelled  to  content  themselves  with  speak- 
ing from  the  pages  of  the  "  Record  "  instead  of 
from  their  places  in  the  House.  Some  people 
who  live  very  far  from  Washington  may  imag- 
ine that  the  speeches  which  are  spread  at  large 
in  the  columns  of  the  "  Congressional  Record," 
or  which  their  representative  sends  them  in 
pamphlet  form,  were  actually  delivered  in  Con- 
gress ;  but  every  one  else  knows  that  they  were 
not ;  that  Congress  is  constantly  granting  leave 
to  its  members  to  insert  in  the  official  reports  of 
the  proceedings  speeches  which  it  never  heard 
and  does  not  care  to  hear,  but  which  it  is  not 
averse  from  printing  at  the  public  expense,  if  it 
is  desirable  that  constituents  and  the  country  at 
large  should  read  them.  It  will  not  stand  be- 
tween a  member  and  his  constituents  so  long  as 
it  can  indulge  the  one  and  satisfy  the  others 
without  any  inconvenience  to  itself  or  any  seri- 
ous drain  upon  the  resources  of  the  Treasury. 
The  public  printer  does  not  object. 

But  there  are  other  reasons  still  more  organic 
than  these  why  the  debates  of  Congress  cannot, 
under  our  present  system,  have  that  serious  pur- 
pose of  search  into  the  merits  of  policies  and 
that  definite  and  determinate  party  —  or,  if  you 
will,  partisan  —  aim  without  which  they  can 
never  be  effective  for  the  instruction  of  public 
opinion,  or  the   cleansing  of   political  action. 


92  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

The  chief  of  these  reasons,  because  the  parent 
of  all  the  rest,  is  that  there  are  in  Congress  no 
authoritative  leaders  who  are  the  recognized 
spokesmen  of  their  parties.  Power  is  nowhere 
concentrated ;  it  is  rather  deliberately  and  of  set 
policy  scattered  amongst  many  small  chiefs.  It 
is  divided  up,  as  it  were,  into  forty-seven  seign- 
iories, in  each  of  which  a  Standing  Committee 
is  the  court -baron  and  its  chairman  lord -pro- 
prietor. These  petty  barons,  some  of  them  not 
a  little  powerful,  but  none  of  them  within  reach 
of  the  full  powers  of  rule,  may  at  will  exercise 
an  almost  despotic  sway  within  their  own  shires, 
and  may  sometimes  threaten  to  convidse  even 
the  realm  itself;  but  both  their  mutual  jeal- 
ousies and  their  brief  and  restricted  opportuni- 
ties forbid  their  combining,  and  each  is  very  far 
from  the  office  of  common  leader. 

I  know  that  to  some  this  scheme  of  distributed 
power  and  disintegrated  rule  seems  a  very  excel- 
lent device  whereby  we  are  enabled  to  escape  a 
dangerous  "  one-man  power  "  and  an  untoward 
concentration  of  functions  ;  and  it  is  very  easy 
to  see  and  appreciate  the  considerations  which 
make  this  view  of  committee  government  so 
popidar.  It  is  based  upon  a  very  proper  and 
salutary  fear  of  irresponsible  power  ;  and  those 
who  most  resolutely  maintain  it  always  fight 
from  the  position  that  all  leadership  in  legis* 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.         93 

lation  is  hard  to  restrain  in  proportion  to  its  size 
and  to  the  strength  of  its  prerogatives,  and  that 
to  divide  it  is  to  make  it  manageable.  They 
aver,  besides,  that  the  less  a  man  has  to  do  — 
that  is  to  say,  the  more  he  is  confined  to  single 
departments  and  to  definite  details  —  the  more 
intelligent  and  thorough  will  his  work  be.  They 
like  the  Committees,  therefore,  just  because  they 
are  many  and  weak,  being  quite  willing  to 
abide  their  being  despotic  within  their  narrow 
spheres. 

It  seems  evident,  however,  when  the  question 
is  looked  at  from  another  stand-point,  that,  as  a 
matter  of  fact  and  experience,  the  more  power  is 
divided  the  more  irresponsible  it  becomes.  A 
mighty  baron  who  can  call  half  the  country  to 
arms  is  watched  with  greater  jealousy,  and,  there- 
fore, restrained  with  more  vigilant  care  than  is 
ever  vouchsafed  the  feeble  master  of  a  single  and 
solitary  castle.  The  one  cannot  stir  abroad  upon 
an  innocent  pleasure  jaunt  without  attracting  the 
suspicious  attention  of  the  whole  country-side ; 
the  other  may  vex  and  harry  his  entire  neighbor- 
hood without  fear  of  let  or  hindrance.  It  is  ever 
the  little  foxes  that  spoil  the  grapes.  At  any 
rate,  to  turn  back  from  illustration  to  the  facts 
of  the  argument,  it  is  plain  enough  that  the  petty 
character  of  the  leadership  of  each  Committee 
contributes  towards  making  its  despotism  sure 


94  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

by  making  its  duties  uninteresting.  The  Senate 
almost  always  discusses  its  business  with  con- 
siderable thoroughness;  and  even  the  House, 
whether  by  common  consent  or  by  reason  of  such 
persistent  "  filibustering "  on  the  part  of  the 
minority  as  compels  the  reporting  Committee 
and  the  majority  to  grant  time  for  talk,  some- 
times stops  to  debate  committee  reports  at 
length ;  but  nobody,  except,  perhaps,  newspaper 
editors,  finds  these  debates  interesting  reading. 

Why  is  it  that  many  intelligent  and  patriotic 
people  throughout  this  country,  from  Virginia  to 
California,  —  people  who,  beyond  all  question, 
love  their  State  and  the  Union  more  than  they 
love  our  cousin  state  over  sea,  —  subscribe  for 
the  London  papers  in  order  to  devour  the  par- 
liamentary debates,  and  yet  would  never  think 
of^ troubling  themselves  to  make  tedious  progress 
through  a  single  copy  of  the  "  Congressional 
Record  "  ?  Is  it  because  they  are  captivated  by 
the  old-world  dignity  of  royal  England  with  its 
nobility  and  its  court  pageantry,  or  because  of  a 
vulgar  desire  to  appear  better  versed  than  their 
neighbors  in  foreign  affairs,  and  to  affect  famil- 
iarity with  British  statesmen?  No;  of  course 
not.  It  is  because  the  parliamentary  debates 
are  interesting  and  ours  are  not.  In  the  British 
House  of  Commons  the  functions  and  privileges 
of  our  Standing  Committees  are  all  concentrated 


THE  BOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.  95 

in  the  hands  of  the  Ministry,  who  have,  besides, 
some  prerogatives  of  leadership  which  even  our 
Committees  do  not  possess,  so  that  they  carry 
all  responsibility  as  well  as  great  power,  and  all 
debate  wears  an  intense  personal  and  party  in- 
terest. Every  important  discussion  is  an  arraign- 
ment of  the  Ministry  by  the  Opposition,  —  an 
arraignment  of  the  majority  by  the  minority ; 
and  every  important  vote  is  a  party  defeat  and  a 
party  triumph.  The  whole  conduct  of  the  gov- 
ernment turns  upon  what  is  said  in  the  Com- 
mons, because  the  revelations  of  debate  often 
change  votes,  and  a  Ministry  loses  hold  upon 
power  as  it  loses  hold  upon  the  confidence  of  the 
Commons.  This  great  Standing  Committee  goes 
out  whenever  it  crosses  the  will  of  the  majority. 
It  is,  therefore,  for  these  very  simple  and  obvious 
reasons  that  the  parliamentary  debates  are  read 
on  this  side  of  the  water  in  preference  to  the 
congressional  debates.  They  affect  the  minis- 
ters, who  are  very  conspicuous  persons,  and  in 
whom,  therefore,  all  the  intelligent  world  is 
interested;  and  they  determine  the  course  of 
politics  in  a  great  empire.  The  season  of  a 
parliamentary  debate  is  a  great  field  day  on 
which  Liberals  and  Conservatives  pit  their  full 
forces  against  each  other,  and  people  like  to 
watch  the  issues  of  the  contest. 

Our  congressional  debates,  on  the  contrary, 


96  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

have  no  tithe  of  this  interest,  because  they  have 
no  tithe  of  such  significance  and  importance. 
The  committee  reports,  upon  which  the  debates 
take  place,  are  backed  by  neither  party ;  they 
represent  merely  the  recommendations  of  a  small 
body  of  members  belonging  to  both  parties,  and 
are  quite  as  likely  to  divide  the  vote  of  the 
party  to  which  the  majority  of  the  Committee 
belong  as  they  are  to  meet  with  opposition  from 
the  other  side  of  the  chamber.  If  they  are 
carried,  it  is  no  party  triumph ;  if  they  are  lost, 
it  is  no  party  discomfiture.  They  are  no  more 
than  the  proposals  of  a  mixed  Committee,  and 
may  be  rejected  without  political  inconvenience 
to  either  party  or  reproof  to  the  Committee ;  just 
as  they  may  be  passed  without  compliment  to 
the  Committee  or  political  advantage  to  either 
side  of  the  House.  Neither  party  has  any  great 
stake  in  the  controversy.  The  only  importance 
that  can  attach  to  the  vote  must  hang  upon  its 
relation  to  the  next  general  election.  If  the 
report  concern  a  question  which  is  at  the  time  so 
much  in  the  public  eye  that  all  action  upon  it  is 
likely  to  be  marked  and  remembered  against  the 
day  of  popular  action,  parties  are  careful  to  vote 
as  solidly  as  possible  on  what  they  conceive  to  be 
the  safe  side ;  but  all  other  reports  are  disposed 
of  without  much  thought  of  their  influence  upon 
the  fortunes  of  distant  elections,  because  that 
influence  is  remote  and  problematical. 


THE  HOUSE   OF  REPRESENTATIVES.  97 

In  a  word,  the  national  parties  do  not  act  in 
Congress  under  the  restraint  of  a  sense  of  im- 
mediate responsibility.  Responsibility  is  spread 
thin ;  and  no  vote  or  debate  can  gather  it.  It 
rests  not  so  much  upon  parties  as  upon  indi- 
viduals ;  and  it  rests  upon  individuals  in  no 
such  way  as  would  make  it  either  just  or  effica- 
cious to  visit  upon  them  the  iniquity  of  any 
legislative  act.  Looking  at  government  from  a. 
practical  and  business-like,  rather  than  from  a 
theoretical  and  abstractly-ethical  point  of  view, 
—  treating  the  business  of  government  as  a  busi- 
ness, —  it  seems  to  be  unquestionably  and  in  a 
high  degree  desirable  that  all  legislation  should 
distinctly  represent  the  action  of  parties  as  par- 
ties. I  know  that  it  has  been  proposed  by  en- 
thusiastic, but  not  too  practical,  reformers  to  do 
away  with  parties  by  some  legerdemain  of  gov- 
ernmental reconstruction,  accompanied  and  sup- 
plemented by  some  rehabilitation,  devoutly  to 
be  wished,  of  the  virtues  least  commonly  con- 
trolling in  fallen  human  nature  ;  but  it  seems  to 
me  that  it  would  be  more  difficult  and  less  desir- 
able than  these  amiable  persons  suppose  to  con- 
duct a  government  of  the  many  by  means  of  any 
other  device  than  party  organization,  and  that 
the  great  need  is,  not  to  get  rid  of  parties,  but 
to  find  and  use  some  expedient  by  which  they 
ean  be  managed  and  made  amenable  from  day 


98  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

to  day  to  public  opinion.  Plainly  this  cannot  be 
effected  by  punishing  here  and  there  a  member 
of  Congress  who  has  voted  for  a  flagrantly  dishon- 
est appropriation  bill,  or  an  obnoxious  measure 
relating  to  the  tariff.  Unless  the  punishment 
can  be  extended  to  the  party  —  if  any  such  be 
recognizable  —  with  which  these  members  have 
voted,  no  advantage  has  been  won  for  self-gov- 
ernment, and  no  triumph  has  been  gained  by 
public  opinion.  It  should  be  desired  that  parties 
should  act  in  distinct  organizations,  in  accordance 
with  avowed  principles,  under  easily  recognized 
leaders,  in  order  that  the  voters  might  be  able  to 
declare  by  their  ballots,  not  only  their  condem- 
nation of  any  past  policy,  by  withdrawing  all 
support  from  the  party  responsible  for  it ;  but 
also  and  particularly  their  will  as  to  the  future 
administration  of  the  government,  by  bringing 
into  power  a  party  pledged  to  the  adoption  of  an 
acceptable  policy. 

It  is,  therefore,  a  fact  of  the  most  serious  con- 
sequence that  by  our  system  of  congressional 
rule  no  such  means  of  controlling  legislation  is 
afforded.  Outside  of  Congress  the  organization 
of  the  national  parties  is  exceedingly  well-defined 
and  tangible ;  no  one  could  wish  it,  and  few 
could  imagine  it,  more  so  ;  but  within  Congress 
it  is  obscure  and  intangible.  Our  parties  mar- 
shal their  adherents  with  the  strictest  possible 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.         99 

discipline  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  elections, 
but  their  discipline  is  very  slack  and  indefinite  in 
dealing  with  legislation.  At  least  there  is  within 
Congress  no  visible.,  and  therefore  no  controllable 
party  organization.  The  only  bond  of  cohesion 
is  the  caucus,  which  occasionally  whips  a  party 
together  for  cooperative  action  against  the  time 
for  casting  its  vote  upon  some  critical  question. 
There  is  always  a  majority  and  a  minority,  in- 
deed, but  the  legislation  of  a  session  does  not 
represent  the  policy  of  either ;  it  is  simply  an 
aggregate  of  the  bills  recommended  by  Com- 
mittees composed  of  members  from  both  sides  of 
the  House,  and  it  is  known  to  be  usually,  not 
the  work  of  the  majority  men  upon  the  Com- 
mittees, but  compromise  conclusions  bearing  some 
shade  or  tinge  of  each  of  the  variously-colored 
opinions  and  wishes  of  the  committee-men  of  both 
parties. 

It  is  plainly  the  representation  of  both  parties 
on  the  Committees  that  makes  party  responsibility 
indistinct  and  organized  party  action  almost  im- 
possible. If  the  Committees  were  composed  en- 
tirely of  members  of  the  majority,  and  were  thus 
constituted  representatives  of  the  party  in  power, 
the  whole  course  of  congressional  proceedings 
would  unquestionably  take  on  a  very  different 
aspect.  There  would  then  certainly  be  a  com- 
pact opposition  to  face  the  organized  majority. 


100  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

Committee  reports  would  be  taken  to  represent 
the  views  of  the  party  in  power,  and,  instead  of 
the  scattered,  unconcerted  opposition,  without 
plan  or  leaders,  which  now  sometimes  subjects 
the  propositions  of  the  Committees  to  vexatious 
hindrances  and  delays,  there  would  spring  up 
debate  under  skillful  masters  of  opposition,  who 
could  drill  their  partisans  for  effective  warfare 
and  give  shape  and  meaning  to  t|ie  purposes  of 
the  minority.  But  of  course  there  can  be  no 
such  definite  division  of  forces  so  long  as  the  ef- 
ficient machinery  of  legislation  is  in  the  hands 
of  both  parties  at  once  ;  so  long  as  the  parties 
are  mingled  and  harnessed  together  in  a  common 
organization. 

It  may  be  said,  therefore,  that  very  few  of  the 
measures  which  come  before  Congress  are  party 
measures.  They  are,  at  any  rate,  not  brought 
in  as  party  measures.  They  are  indorsed  by  se- 
lect bodies  of  members  chosen  with  a  view  to 
constituting  an  impartial  board  of  examination 
for  the  judicial  and  thorough  consideration  of 
each  subject  of  legislation ;  no  member  of  one 
of  these  Committees  is  warranted  in  revealing 
any  of  the  disagreements  of  the  committee-room 
or  the  proportions  of  the  votes  there  taken ;  and 
no  color  is  meant  to  be  given  to  the  supposition 
that  the  reports  made  are  intended  to  advance 
any  party  interest.     Indeed,  only  a  very  slight 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       101 

examination  of  the  measures  which  originate 
with  the  Committees  is  necessary  to  show  that 
most  of  them  are  framed  with  a  view  to  securing 
their  easy  passage  by  giving  them  as  neutral  and 
inoffensive  a  character  as  possible.  The  mani- 
fest object  is  to  dress  them  to  the  liking  of  all 
factions. 

Under  such  circumstances,  neither  the  failure 
nor  the  success  of  any  policy  inaugurated  by  one 
of  the  Committees  can  fairly  be  charged  to  !;he 
account  of  either  party.  The  Committee  acted 
honestly,  no  doubt,  and  as  they  thought  best ; 
and  there  can,  of  course,  be  no  assurance  that, 
by  taking  away  its  congressional  majority  from 
the  party  to  which  the  greater  number  of  the 
committee-men  belong,  a  Committee  could  be 
secured  which  would  act  better  or  differently. 

The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  is,  then, 
that  public  opinion  cannot  be  instructed  or  ele- 
vated by  the  debates  of  Congress,  not  only  be- 
cause there  are  few  debates  seriously  undertaken 
by  Congress,  but  principally  because  no  one  not 
professionally  interested  in  the  daily  course  of 
legislation  cares  to  read  what  is  said  by  the  de- 
baters when  Congress  does  stop  to  talk,  inas- 
much as  nothing  depends  upon  the  issue  of  the 
discussion.  The  ordinary  citizen  cannot  be  in- 
duced to  pay  much  heed  to  the  details,  or  even 
to  the  main  principles,  of  law-making,  unless 


102  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

something  else  more  interesting  than  the  law  it- 
self be  involved  in  the  pending  decision  of  the 
law-makers.  If  the  fortunes  of  a  party  or  the 
power  of  a  great  political  leader  are  staked  upon 
the  final  vote,  he  will  listen  with  the  keenest  in- 
terest to  all  that  the  principal  actors  may  have 
to  say,  and  absorb  much  instruction  in  so  doing ; 
but  if  no  such  things  hang  in  the  balance,  he 
will  not  turn  from  his  business  to  listen  ;  and  if 
the  true  issues  are  not  brought  out  in  eager  pub- 
lic contests  which  catch  his  ear  because  of  their 
immediate  personal  interest,  but  must  be  sought 
amidst  the  information  which  can  be  made  com* 
plete  only  by  reading  scores  of  newspapers,  he 
will  certainly  never  find  them  or  care  for  them, 
and  there  is  small  use  in  printing  a  "  Record  " 
which  he  will  not  read. 

I  know  not  how  better  to  describe  our  form  of 
government  in  a  single  phrase  than  by  calling  it 
a  government  by  the  chairmen  of  the  Standing 
Committees  of  Congress.  This  disintegrate  min- 
istry, as  it  figures  on  the  floor  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  has  many  peculiarities.  In  the 
first  place,  it  is  made  up  of  the  elders  of  the  as- 
sembly ;  for,  by  custom,  seniority  in  congres- 
sional service  determines  the  bestowal  of  the 
principal  chairmanships ;  in  the  second  place,  it 
is  constituted  of  selfish  and  warring  elements ; 
for  chairman  fights  against  chairman  for  use  of 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       105 

the  time  of  the  assembly,  though  the  most  part 
of  them  are  inferior  to  the  chairman  of  Ways 
and  Means,  and  all  are  subordinate  to  the  chair- 
man of  the  Committee  on  Appropriations  ;  in 
the  third  place,  instead  of  being  composed  of 
the  associated  leaders  of  Congress,  it  consists  of 
the  dissociated  heads  of  forty-eight  "  little  legis- 
latures "  (to  borrow  Senator  Hoar's  apt  name 
for  the  Committees)  ;  and,  in  the  fourth  place,  it 
is  instituted  by  appointment  from  Mr.  Speaker, 
who  is,  by  intention,  the  chief  judicial,  rather 
than  the  chief  political,  officer  of  the  House. 

It  is  highly  interesting  to  note  the  extraor- 
dinary power  accruing  to  Mr.  Speaker  through 
this  pregnant  prerogative  of  appointing  the 
Standing  Committees  of  the  House.  That  power 
is,  as  it  were,  the  central  and  characteristic  incon- 
venience and  anomaly  of  our  constitutional  sys- 
tem, and  on  that  account  excites  both  the  curios- 
ity and  the  wonder  of  the  student  of  institutions. 
The  most  esteemed  writers  upon  our  Constitution 
have  failed  to  observe,  not  only  that  the  Stand- 
ing Committees  are  the  most  essential  machinery 
of  our  governmental  system,  but  also  that  the 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives  is  the 
most  powerful  functionary  of  that  system.  So 
sovereign  is  he  within  the  wide  sphere  of  his  in- 
fluence that  one  could  wish  for  accurate  knowl- 
edge as  to  the  actual  extent  of  his  power.     But 


104  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

Mr.  Speaker's  powers  cannot  be  Known  accu- 
rately, because  they  vary  with  the  character  of 
Mr.  Speaker.  All  Speakers  have,  of  late  years 
especially,  been  potent  factors  in  legislation,  but 
some  have,  by  reason  of  greater  energy  or  less 
conscience,  made  more  use  of  their  opportunities 
than  have  others. 

The  Speaker's  privilege  of  appointing  the 
Standing  Committees  is  nearly  as  old  as  Con- 
gress itself.  At  first  the  House  tried  the  plan 
of  balloting  for  its  more  important  Committees, 
ordering,  in  April,  1789,  that  the  Speaker  should 
appoint  only  those  Committees  which  should  con- 
sist of  not  more  than  three  members ;  but  less 
than  a  year's  experience  of  this  method  of  or- 
ganizing seems  to  have  furnished  satisfactory 
proof  of  its  impracticability,  and  in  January, 
1790,  the  present  rule  was  adopted :  that  "  All 
committees  shall  be  appointed  by  the  Speaker, 
unless  otherwise  specially  directed  by  the 
House."  The  rules  of  one  House  of  Represen- 
tatives are  not,  however,  necessarily  the  rules  of 
the  next.  No  rule  lives  save  by  biennial  readop- 
tion.  Each  newly-elected  House  meets  without 
ndes  for  its  governance,  and  amongst  the  first 
acts  of  its  first  session  is  usually  the  adoption  of 
the  resolution  that  the  rules  of  its  predecessor 
shall  be  its  own  rules,  subject,  of  course,  to  such 
revisions  as  it  may,  from  time  to  time,  see  fit  to 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       105 

make.  Mr.  Speaker's  power  of  appointment, 
accordingly,  always  awaits  the  passage  of  this 
resolution ;  but  it  never  waits  in  vain,  for  no 
House,  however  foolish  in  other  respects,  has  yet 
been  foolish  enough  to  make  fresh  trial  of  elect- 
ing its  Committees.  That  mode  may  do  well 
enough  for  the  cool  and  leisurely  Senate,  but  it 
is  not  for  the  hasty  and  turbulent  House. 

It  must  always,  of  course,  have  seemed  emi- 
nently desirable  to  all  thoughtful  and  experi- 
enced men  that  Mr.  Speaker  should  be  no  more 
than  the  judicial  guide  and  moderator  of  the 
proceedings  of  the  House,  keeping  apart  from 
the  heated  controversies  of  party  warfare,  and 
exercising  none  but  an  impartial  influence  upon 
the  course  of  legislation ;  and  probably  when  he 
was  first  invested  with  the  power  of  appointment 
it  was  thought  possible  that  he  could  exercise 
that  great  prerogative  without  allowing  his  per- 
sonal views  upon  questions  of  public  policy  to 
control  or  even  affect  his  choice.  But  it  must 
very  soon  have  appeared  that  it  was  too  much  to 
expect  of  a  man  who  had  it  within  his  power  to 
direct  affairs  that  he  should  subdue  all  purpose 
to  do  so,  and  should  make  all  appointments  with 
an  eye  to  regarding  every  preference  but  his 
own ;  and  when  that  did  become  evident,  the 
rule  was  undoubtedly  retained  only  because  none 
better  could  be  devised.     Besides,  in  the  early 


106  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

years  of  the  Constitution  the  Committees  were 
very  far  from  having  the  power  they  now  possess. 
Business  did  not  then  hurry  too  fast  for  discus- 
sion, and  the  House  was  in  the  habit  of  scrutiniz- 
ing the  reports  of  the  Committees  much  more 
critically  than  it  now  pretends  to  do.  It  delib- 
erated in  its  open  sessions  as  well  as  in  its  pri- 
vate committee-rooms,  ;and  the  functionary  who 
appointed  its  committees  was  simply  the  nomi- 
nator of  its  advisers,  not,  as  is  the  Speaker  of 
to-day,  the  nominor  of  its  rulers. 

It  is  plain,  therefore,  that  the  office  of  Speaker 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  is  in  its  present 
estate  a  constitutional  phenomenon  of  the  first 
importance,  deserving  a  very  thorough  and  crit- 
ical examination.  If  I  have  succeeded,  in  what 
I  have  already  said,  in  making  clear  the  extraor- 
dinary power  of  the  Committees  in  directing 
legislation,  it  may  now  go  without  the  saying 
that  he  who  appoints  those  Committees  is  an  au- 
tocrat of  the  first  magnitude.  There  could  be  no 
clearer  proof  of  the  great  political  weight  of  the 
Speaker's  high  commission  in  this  regard  than 
the  keen  strife  which  every  two  years  takes  place 
over  the  election  to  the  speakership,  and  the  in- 
tense interest  excited  throughout  the  country  as 
to  the  choice  to  be  made.  Of  late  years,  the 
newspapers  have  had  almost  as  much  to  say 
about  the   rival  candidates  for  that  office  as 


THE  HOUSE   OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       107 

about  the  candidates  for  the  presidency  itself, 
having  come  to  look  upon  the  selection  made  as 
a  sure  index  of  the  policy  to  be  expected  in  leg- 
islation, 

i  The  Speaker  is  of  course  chosen  by  the  party 
which  commands  the  majority  in  the  House,  and 
it  has  sometimes  been  the  effort  of  scheming, 
seK-seeking  men  of  that  majority  to  secure  the 
elevation  of  some  friend  or  tool  of  their  own  to 
that  office,  from  which  he  can  render  them  ser- 
vice of  the  most  substantial  and  acceptable  sort. 
But,  although  these  intrigues  have  occasionally 
resulted  in  the  election  of  a  man  of  insignificant 
parts  and  doubtful  character,  the  choice  has 
usually  fallen  upon  some  representative  party 
man  of  well-known  antecedents  and  clearly- 
avowed  opinions ;  for  the  House  cannot,  and 
will  not  willingly,  put  up  with  the  intolerable 
inconvenience  of  a  weak  Speaker,  and  the  ma- 
jority are  urged  by  self-respect  and  by  all  the 
weightiest  considerations  of  expediency,  as  well 
as  by  a  regard  for  the  interests  of  the  public 
business,  to  place  one  of  their  accredited  leaders 
in  the  chair.  If  there  be  differences  of  opinion 
within  the  party,  a  choice  between  leaders  be- 
comes a  choice  between  policies  and  assumes  the 
greatest  significance.  The  Speaker  is .  expected 
to  constitute  the  Committees  in  accordance  with 
his  own  political  views,  and  this  or  that  candi- 


108  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

date  is  preferred  by  his  party,  not  at  all  because 
of  any  supposed  superiority  of  knowledge  of  the 
precedents  and  laws  of  parliamentary  usage,  but 
because  of  his  more  popular  opinions  concerning 
the  leading  questions  of  the  day. 

Mr.  Speaker,  too,  generally  uses  his  powers  as 
freely  and  imperatively  as  he  is  expected  to  use 
them.  He  unhesitatingly  acts  as  the  legislative 
chief  of  his  party,  organizing  the  Committees  in 
the  interest  of  this  or  that  policy,  not  covertly 
and  on  the  sly,  as  one  who  does  something  of 
which  he  is  ashamed,  but  openly  and  confidently, 
as  one  who  does  his  duty.  Nor  does  his  official 
connection  with  the  Committees  cease  upon  their 
appointment.  It  is  his  care  to  facilitate  their 
control  of  the  business  of  the  House,  by  recog- 
nizing during  the  consideration  of  a  report  only 
those  members  with  whom  the  reporting  com- 
mittee-man has  agreed  to  share  his  time,  and  by 
keeping  all  who  address  the  House  within  the 
strictest  letter  of  the  rules  as  to  the  length  of 
their  speeches,  as  well  as  by  enforcing  all  those 
other  restrictions  which  forbid  independent  action 
on  the  part  of  individual  members.  He  must  see 
to  it  that  the  Committees  have  their  own  way. 
In  so  doing  he  is  not  exercising  arbitrary  powers 
which  circumstances  and  the  habits  of  the  as- 
sembly enable  him  safely  to  arrogate;  he  is 
simply  enforcing  the  plain  letter  and  satisfying 
the  evident  spirit  of  the  rules. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       109" 

A  student  of  Roman  law  and  institutions, 
looking  at  the  Rules  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives through  glasses  unaccustomed  to  search  out 
aught  but  antiquities,  might  be  excused  for  claim- 
ing that  he  found  in  the  customs  of  the  House  a 
striking  reproduction  of  Roman  legislative  meth- 
ods. The  Roman  assembly,  he  would  remind  us, 
could  not  vote  and  debate  at  the  same  time ;  it 
had  no  privileges  of  amendment,  but  had  to  adopt 
every  law  as  a  whole  or  reject  it  as  a  whole  ;  and 
no  private  member  had  a  right  to  introduce  a  bill, 
that  being  the  exclusive  prerogative  of  the  magis- 
trates. But  though  he  might  establish  a  parallel 
satisfactory  to  himself  between  the  magistrates 
of  Rome  and  the  Committees  at  Washington, 
and  between  the  undebatable,  unamendable  laws 
of  the  ancient,  and  the  undebated,  unamended 
laws  of  the  modern,  republic,  he  covdd  hardly 
find  in  the  later  system  that  compensating  ad- 
vantage which  scholars  have  noted  as  giving  to 
Roman  legislation  a  clearness  and  technical  per- 
fection such  as  is  to  be  found  in  none  of  the 
modern  codes.  Since  Roman  laws  could  not  be 
amended  in  their  passage,  and  must  carry  their 
meaning  plainly  to  the  comprehension  of  the 
commons,  clear  and  brief  drafting  was  cultivated 
as  of  the  first  necessity  in  drawing  up  measures 
which  were  first  to  gain  popular  approval  and 
then  to  succeed  or  fail  iu  accomplishing  their 


110  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

ends  according  as  they  proved  workable  or  im- 
practicable. 

No  such  comparison  of  our  own  with  other 
systems  can,  however,  find  any  favor  in  the  eyes 
of  a  certain  class  of  Americans  who  pride  them- 
selves upon  being  nothing  if  not  patriotic,  and 
who  can  consequently  find  na  higher  praise  for 
the  peculiar  devices  of  committee  government 
than  that  they  are  our  own  invention.  "  An  ill- 
favored  thing,  sir,  but  mine  own."  No  one  will 
readily  believe,  however,  that  congressmen  — 
even  those  of  them  who  belong  to  this  dutiful 
class  — cherish  a  very  loving  admiration  for  the 
discipline  to  which  they  are  nowadays  subjected. 
As  the  accomplished  librarian  of  Congress  has 
declared,  "  the  general  conviction  may  be  said  to 
exist,  that,  under  the  great  control  over  legisla- 
tion and  current  business  by  the  Speaker,  and  by 
the  powerful  Committee  on  Appropriations,  com- 
bined with  the  rigor  of  the  Rules  of  the  House, 
there  is  less  and  less  opportunity  for  individual 
members  to  make  any  influential  mark  in  legis- 
lation. Independence  and  ability  are  repressed 
under  the  t3rranny  of  the  rules,  and  practically 
the  power  of  the  popular  branch  of  Congress  is 
concentrated  in  the  Speaker  and  a  few — very 
few  —  expert  parliamentarians."  And  of  course 
members  of  Congress  see  this.  "  We  have  but 
three  forces  in  this  House,"  exclaimed  a  jocose 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       Ill 

member  from  the  Pacific  coast,  "  the  Brahmins 
of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  —  not  the 
brains  but  the  Brahmins  of  the  House  ;  the 
white-button  mandarins  of  the  Appropriations 
Committee :  the  dignified  oligarchy  called  the 
Committee  on  Rules  ;  the  Speaker  of  the  House ; 
and  the  illustrious  gentleman  from  Indiana." 
Naturally  all  men  of  independent  spirit  chafe 
under  the  arbitrary  restraints  of  such  a  system, 
and  it  would  be  much  more  philosophical  to  con- 
clude that  they  let  it  stand  because  they  can  de- 
vise nothing  better,  than  that  they  adhere  to  its 
inconvenient  practices  because  of  their  admira- 
tion for  it  as  an  American  invention. 

However  that  may  be,  the  number  of  those 
who  misuse  the  rules  is  greater  than  the  number 
of  those  who  strive  to  reform  them.  One  of  the 
most  startling  of  the  prevalent  abuses  is  the  hasty 
passage  of  bills  under  a  suspension  of  the  rules, 
a  device  "by  means  of  which,"  says  Senator 
Hoar,  "  a  large  proportion,  perhaps  the  majority, 
of  the  bills  which  pass  the  House  are  carried 
through."  This  practice  may  be  very  clearly 
understood  by  following  further  Mr.  Hoar's  own 
words :  "  Every  Monday  after  the  morning  hour, 
and  at  any  time  during  the  last  ten  days  of  a 
session,  motions  to  suspend  the  rules  are  in  order. 
At  these  times  any  member  may  move  to  suspend 
the  rules  and  pass  any  proposed  bill.     It  requires 


112  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

two  thirds  of  the  members  voting  to  adopt  such 
a  motion.  Upon  it  no  debate  or  amendment  is 
in  order.  In  this  way,  if  two  thirds  of  the  body 
agree,  a  bill  is  by  a  single  vote,  without  discus- 
sion and  without  change,  passed  through  all  the 
necessary  stages,  and  made  a  law,  so  far  as  the 
House  of  Representatives  can  accomplish  it ;  and 
in  this  mode  hundreds  of  measures  of  vital  im- 
portance receive,  near  the  close  of  an  exhaust- 
ing session,  without  being  debated,  amended, 
printed,  or  understood,  the  constitutional  assent 
of  the  representatives  of  the  American  people." 
One  very  obvious  comment  to  be  made  upon 
habits  of  procedure  so  palpably  pernicious  is, 
that  nothing  could  be  more  natural  under  rules 
which  repress  individual  action  with  so  much 
stringency.  Then,  too,  the  mills  of  the  Commit- 
tees are  known  to  grind  slowly,  and  a  very  quick 
and  easy  way  of  getting  rid  of  minor  items  of 
business  is  to  let  particular  biUs,  of  apparently 
innocent  meaning  or  laudable  intent,  run  through 
without  commitment.  There  must  be  some  out- 
let, too,  through  which  the  waters  of  delayed  and 
accumulated  business  may  be  drained  off  as  the 
end  of  a  session  draws  near.  Members  who 
know  how  to  take  the  House  at  an  indulgent 
moment,  and  can  in  a  few  words  make  out  a 
primd  facie  case  for  the  action  they  urge,  can 
^iwxost  always  secure  a  suspension  of  the  rules, 


THE  HOUSE   OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       113 

To  speak  very  plainly,  it  is  wonderful  that 
under  such  a  system  of  government  legislation  is 
not  oftener  at  sixes  and  sevens  than  it  actually 
is.  The  infinitely  varied  and  various  interests 
of  fifty  millions  of  active  people  would  be  hard 
enough  to  harmonize  and  serve,  one  would  think, 
were  parties  efficiently  organized  in  the  pursuit 
of  definite,  steady,  consistent  policies ;  and  it  is 
therefore  simply  amazing  to  find  how  few  out- 
rageously and  fatally  foolish,  how  few  bad  or 
disastrous,  things  have  been  done  by  means  of 
our  disintegrate  methods  of  legislation.  The 
Committees  of  the  House  to  whom  the  principal 
topics  of  legislation  are  allotted  number  more 
than  thirty.  We  are  ruled  by  a  score  and  a  half 
of  "  little  legislatures."  Our  legislation  is  con- 
glomerate, not  homogeneous.  The  doings  of  one 
and  the  same  Congress  are  foolish  in  pieces  and 
wise  in  spots.  They  can  never,  except  by  acci- 
dent, have  any  common  features.  Some  of  the 
Committees  are  made  up  of  strong  men,  the  ma- 
jority of  them  of  weak  men ;  and  the  weak  are 
as  influential  as  the  strong.  The  country  can 
get  the  counsel  and  guidance  of  its  ablest  repre- 
sentatives only  upon  one  or  two  subjects  ;  upon 
the  rest  it  must  be  content  with  the  impotent 
service  of  the  feeble.  Only  a  very  small  part  of 
its  most  important  business  can  be  done  well ; 
the  system  provides  for  having  the  rest  of  it  done 
8 


114  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

miserably,  and  the  whole  of  it  taken  together 
done  at  haphazard.  There  could  be  no  more  in- 
teresting problem  in  the  doctrine  of  chances  than 
that  of  reckoning  the  probabilities  of  there  being 
any  common  features  of  principle  in  the  legisla- 
tion of  an  opening  session.  It  might  lighten  and 
divert  the  leisure  of  some  ingenious  mathemati- 
cian to  attempt  the  calculation. 

It  was  probably  some  such  reflections  as  these 
which  suggested  the  proposal,  made  not  long 
since  in  the  House,  that  there  should  be  ap- 
pointed, along  with  the  usual  Standing  Commit- 
tees, a  new  committee  which  should  be  known 
as  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  House,  and 
should  be  empowered  to  examine  and  sort  all  the 
bills  reported  favorably  by  the  other  Standing 
Committees,  and  bring  them  forward  in  what 
might  seem  to  it  the  order  of  their  importance  ; 
a  committee  which  should,  in  short,  digest  pend- 
ing measures  and  guide  the  House  in  arranging 
its  order  of  business.  But  it  is  seriously  to  be 
doubted  whether  such  an  addition  to  the  present 
organization  would  do  more  than  tighten  the  tyr-. 
anny  of  committee  rule  and  still  further  restrict 
freedom  of  debate  and  action.  A  committee  to 
superintend  committees  would  add  very  little  to 
the  efficiency  of  the  House,  and  would  certainly 
contribute  nothing  towards  unifying  legislation, 
unless  the  new  committee  were  to  be  given  the 


TEE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       115 

power,  not  yet  thought  of,  of  revising  the  work 
of  the  present  Standing  Committees.  Such  an 
executive  committee  is  not  quite  the  device 
needed. 

Apparently  committee  government  is  but  one 
of  many  experiments  in  the  direction  of  the  reali- 
zation of  an  idea  best  expressed  —  so  far  as  my 
reading  shows  —  by  John  Stuart  Mill ;  and  is 
too  much  like  other  experiments  to  be  quite  as 
original  and  unique  as  some  people  would  like  to 
believe.  There  is,  said  Mr.  Mill,  a  "  distinction 
between  the  function  of  making  laws,  for  which 
a  numerous  popular  assembly  is  radically  unfit, 
and  that  of  getting  good  laws  made,  which  is 
its  proper  duty,  and  cannot  be  satisfactorily  ful- 
filled by  any  other  authority ; "  and  there  is,  con- 
sequently, "  need  of  a  legislative  commission,  as 
a  permanent  part  of  the  constitution  of  a  free 
country  ;  consisting  of  a  small  number  of  highly- 
trained  political  minds,  on  whom,  when  parlia- 
ment has  determined  that  a  law  shall  be  made, 
the  task  of  making  it  should  be  devolved ;  parlia- 
ment retaining  the  power  of  passing  or  rejecting 
the  bill  when  drawn  up,  but  not  of  altering  it 
otherwise  than  by  sending  proposed  amendments 
to  be  dealt  with  by  the  commission."  ^  It  would 
seem,  as  I  have  said,  that  committee  government 
is  one  form  of  the  effort,  now  making  by  all  self- 

^  Avtobiography,  pp.  264,  265. 


116  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

governing  peoples,  to  set  up  a  satisfactory  legi& 
lative  commission  somewhat  after  this  order ;  and 
it  might  appear  to  some  as  if  the  proposed  exec- 
utive committee  were  a  slight  approximation  to 
that  form  of  the  effort  which  is  typified  in  the 
legislative  functions  of  the  British  cabinet.  It 
cannot,  of  course,  be  claimed  that  the  forty-eight 
legislative  commissions  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives always  answer  the  purpose  when  the 
House  wants  to  get  good  laws  made,  or  that  each 
of  them  consists  invariably  of  "  a  small  number 
of  highly-trained  political  minds ;  "  but  every- 
body sees  that  to  say  that  they  fall  short  of  re- 
alizing the  ideal  would  be  nothing  less  than  hy- 
percritical. 

In  saying  that  our  committee  government  has, 
germinally,  some  of  the  features  of  the  British 
system,  in  which  the  ministers  of  the  crown,  the 
cabinet,  are  chosen  from  amongst  the  leaders  of 
the  parliamentary  majority,  and  act  not  only  as 
advisers  of  the  sovereign  but  also  as  the  great 
standing  committee  or  "  legislative  commission  " 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  guiding  its  business 
and  digesting  its  graver  matters  of  legislation, 
I  mean,  of  course,  only  that  both  systems  repre- 
sent the  common  necessity  of  setting  apart  some 
small  body,  or  bodies,  of  legislative  guides 
through  whom  a  "  big  meeting "  may  get  laws 
made.     The  difference  between  our  device  and 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.      117» 

the  British  is  that  we  have  a  Standing  Commit- 
tee, drawn  from  both  parties,  for  the  considera- 
tion of  each  topic  of  legislation,  whereas  our 
English  cousins  have  but  a  single  standing  com- 
mittee that  is  charged  with  the  origination  of 
legislation,  —  a  committee  composed  of  the  men 
who  are  recognized  as  the  leaders  of  the  party 
dominant  in  the  state,  and  who  serve  at  the 
same  time  as  the  political  heads  of  the  executive 
departments  of  the  government. 

The  British  system  is  perfected  party  govern- 
ment. No  effort  is  made  in  the  Commons,  such 
as  is  made  in  the  House  of  Representatives  in 
the  composition  of  the  Committees,  to  give  the 
minority  a  share  in  law-making.  Our  minorities 
are  strongly  represented  on  the  Standing  Com- 
mittees ;  the  minority  in  the  Commons  is  not  rep- 
resented at  all  in  the  cabinet.  It  is  this  feature 
of  closely  organized  party  government,  whereby 
the  responsibility  for  legislation  is  saddled  upon 
the  majority,  which,  as  I  have  already  pointed 
out,  gives  to  the  debates  and  action  of  parlia- 
ment an  interest  altogether  denied  to  the  pro- 
ceedings of  Congress.  All  legislation  is  made  a 
contest  for  party  supremacy,  and  if  legislation 
goes  wrong,  or  the  majority  becomes  discontented 
with  the  course  of  policy,  there  is  nothing  for  it 
but  that  the  ministers  should  resign  and  give 
place  to  the  leaders  of  the  Opposition,  unless  a 
new  election  should  procure  for  them  a  recruited 


118  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

following.  Under  such  a  system  mere  silent 
voting  is  out  of  the  question ;  debate  is  a  pri- 
mary necessity.  It  brings  the  representatives  of 
the  people  and  the  ministers  of  the  Crown  face 
to  face.  The  principal  measures  of  each  session 
originate  with  the  ministers,  and  embody  the 
policy  of  the  administration.  Unlike  the  reports 
of  our  Standing  Committees,  which  are  intended 
to  be  simply  the  digested  substance  of  the  more 
sensible  bills  introduced  by  private  members,  the 
bills  introduced  into  the  House  of  Commons  by 
the  cabinet  embody  the  definite  schemes  of  the 
government ;  and  the  fact  that  the  Ministry  is 
made  up  of  the  leaders  of  the  majority  and  rep- 
resents always  the  principles  of  its  party,  makes 
the  minority  only  the  more  anxious  to  have  a 
chance  to  criticise  its  proposals.  Cabinet  gov- 
ernment is  a  device  for  bringing  the  executive 
and  legislative  branches  into  harmony  and  co- 
operation without  uniting  or  confusing  their 
functions.  It  is  as  if  the  majority  in  the  Com- 
mons deputized  its  leaders  to  act  as  the  advisers 
of  the  Crown  and  the  superintendents  of  the 
public  business,  in  order  that  they  might  have 
the  advantage  of  administrative  knowledge  and 
training  in  advising  legislation  and  drafting 
laws  to  be  submitted  to  parliament.  This  ar- 
rangement enlists  the  majority  in  behalf  of  suc^ 
cessful  administration  without  giving  the  minis- 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       119 

ters  any  power  to  coerce  or  arbitrarily  influence 
legislative  action.  Each  session  of  the  Lords 
and  Commons  becomes  a  grand  inquest  into  the 
affairs  of  the  empire.  The  two  estates  sit  as  it 
were  in  committee  on  the  management  of  the 
public  business  —  sit  with  open  doors,  and  spare 
themselves  no  fatigue  in  securing  for  every  in- 
terest represented  a  full,  fair,  and  impartial 
hearing. 

It  is  evident  why  public  debate  is  the  very 
breath  of  life  to  such  a  system.  The  Ministry's 
tenure  of  office  depends  upon  the  success  of  the 
legislation  they  urge.  If  any  of  their  proposals 
are  negatived  by  parliament,  they  are  bound  to 
accept  their  defeat  as  an  intimation  that  their  ad- 
ministration is  no  longer  acceptable  to  the  party 
they  represent,  and  are  expected  to  resign,  or  to 
appeal,  if  they  prefer,  to  the  country  for  its  ver- 
dict, by  exercising  their  privilege  of  advising  the 
sovereign  to  dissolve  parliament  and  issue  writs 
for  a  new  election.  It  is,  consequently,  inevita- 
ble that  the  Ministry  should  be  subjected  to  the 
most  determined  attacks  and  the  keenest  criti- 
cisms of  the  Opposition,  and  should  be  every 
day  of  the  session  put  to  the  task  of  vindicating 
their  course  and  establishing  anew  their  claim  to 
the  confidence  of  their  party.  To  shrink  from 
discussion  would  be  to  confess  weakness  ;  to  suf- 
fer themselves  to  be  worsted  in  discussion  would 


120  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

be  seriously  to  imperil  their  power.  They  must 
look  to  it,  therefore,  not  only  that  their  policy 
be  defensible,  but  that  it  be  valiantly  defended 
also. 

As  might  be  expected,  then,  the  Ministry  sel- 
dom find  the  task  of  leading  the  House  an  easy 
one.  Their  plans  are  kept  under  an  unceasing 
fire  of  criticism  from  both  sides  of  the  House  ; 
for  there  are  independent  sharp-shooters  behind 
the  ministers  as  well  as  heavy  batteries  in  front 
of  them  ;  and  there  are  many  amongst  their  pro- 
fessed followers  who  give  aid  and  comfort  to  the 
enemy.  There  come  ever  and  again  showers  of 
stinging  questions,  too,  from  friends  and  foes 
alike,  —  questions  great  and  small,  direct  and 
indirect,  pertinent  and  impertinent,  concerning 
every  detail  of  administration  and  every  tend- 
ency of  policy. 

But,  although  the  initiative  in  legislation  and 
the  general  direction  of  the  business  of  parlia- 
ment are  the  undisputed  prerogatives  of  "  the 
government,"  as  the  Ministry  is  called,  they 
have  not,  of  course,  all  the  time  of  the  House  at 
their  disposal.  During  the  session,  certain  daj^s 
of  each  week  are  set  apart  for  the  introduction 
and  debate  of  bills  brought  in  by  private  mem- 
bers, who,  at  the  opening  of  the  session,  draw 
lots  to  decide  the  precedence  of  their  bills  or 
motions  on  the  orders  of  the  day.     If   many 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       121 

draw,  those  who  get  last  choice  of  time  find  the 
session  near  its  end,  and  private  members'  days 
being  absorbed  by  belated  government  measures, 
before  their  opportunity  has  come,  and  must 
content  themselves  with  hoping  for  better  for- 
tune next  year ;  but  time  is  generally  found  for 
a  very  fair  and  full  consideration  of  a  large 
number  of  private  members'  bills,  and  no  mem- 
ber is  denied  a  chance  to  air  his  favorite  opin- 
ions in  the  House  or  to  try  the  patience  of  his 
fellow -members  by  annual  repetitions  of  the 
same  proposition.  Private  members  generally 
find  out  by  long  experience,  however,  that  they 
can  exert  a  more  telling  influence  upon  legisla- 
tion by  pressing  amendments  to  government 
schemes,  and  can  effect  more  immediate  and  sat- 
isfactory results  by  keeping  the  Ministry  con- 
stantly in  mind  of  certain  phases  of  public  opin- 
ion, than  they  could  hope  to  exert  or  effect  by 
themselves  introducing  measures  upon  which 
their  party  might  hesitate  to  unite.  Living  as 
he  does  under  a  system  which  makes  it  the  min- 
ister's wisest  policy  to  allow  the  utmost  freedom 
of  debate,  each  member  can  take  as  prominent 
a  part  in  the  proceedings  of  the  House  as  his 
abilities  give  him  title  to  take.  If  he  have  any- 
thing which  is  not  merely  frivolous  to  say,  he 
will  have  repeated  opportunities  to  say  it ;  for 
the  Commons  cough  down  only  the  bores  and 
tho  talkors  fov  tbp  snko  of  tnlk. 


122  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

The  House  of  Commons,  as  well  as  our  House 
of  Representatives,  has  its  committees,  even  its 
standing  committees,  but  they  are  of  the  old-fash- 
ioned sort  which  merely  investigate  and  report, 
not  of  the  new  American  type  which  originate 
and  conduct  legislation.  Nor  are  they  appointed 
by  the  Speaker.  They  are  chosen  with  care  by  a 
"  Committee  of  Selection  "  composed  of  members 
of  both  parties.  The  Speaker  is  kept  carefully 
apart  from  politics  in  all  his  functions,  acting 
as  the  impartial,  judicial  president  of  the  body. 
"Dignity  of  presence,  courtliness  of  manner, 
great  physical  endurance,  courage  and  impartial- 
ity of  judgment,  a  consummate  tact,  and  familiar- 
ity, '  born  of  life-long  experience,'  with  the  writ- 
ten and  unwritten  laws  of  the  House,"  —  such 
are  the  qualities  of  the  ideal  Speaker.  When 
he  takes  the  chair  he  turns  his  back  on  partisan 
alliances  and  serves  both  parties  alike  with  even 
hand.  Such  are  the  traditions  of  the  office  that 
its  occupant  feels  himself  as  strictly  bound  to 
unbiased  judgment  as  is  the  chiefest  judge  of  the 
realm ;  and  it  has  become  no  uncommon  thing 
for  a  Speaker  of  tried  ability  to  preside  during 
several  successive  Parliaments,  whether  the  party 
to  whose  suffrages  he  originally  owed  his  eleva- 
tion remains  in  power  or  no.  His  political  prin- 
ciples do  not  affect  his  fitness  for  judicial  func- 
tions. 


THE  HOUSE   OF  REPRESENTATIVES.        123 

The  Commons  in  session  present  an  interest- 
ing picture.  Constrained  by  their  habits  of  de- 
bate to  sit  in  quarters  suitable  for  the  purpose, 
they  crowd  together  in  a  hall  of  somewhat 
cramped  proportions.  It  seems  a  place  fit  for 
hand  to  hand  combats.  The  cushioned  benches 
on  which  the  members  sit  rise  in  close  series  on 
either  side  of  a  wide  central  aisle  which  they 
face.  At  one  end  of  this  aisle  is  raised  the 
Speaker's  chair,  below  and  in  front  of  which, 
invading  the  spaces  of  the  aisle,  are  the  desks 
of  the  wigged  and  gowned  clerks.  On  the  front 
benches  nearest  the  Speaker  and  to  his  right  sit 
the  cabinet  ministers,  the  leaders  of  the  Gov- 
ernment ;  opposite,  on  the  front  benches  to  the 
Speaker's  left,  sit  the  leaders  of  the  Opposition. 
Behind  and  to  the  right-of  the  ministers  gather 
the  majority ;  behind  and  to  the  left  of  their 
leaders,  the  minority.  Above  the  rear  benches 
and  over  the  outer  aisles  of  the  House,  beyond 
"  the  bar,"  hang  deep  galleries  from  which  the 
outside  world  may  look  down  upon  the  eager 
contests  of  the  two  parties  which  thus  sit  face 
to  face  with  only  the  aisle  between  them.  From 
these  galleries  the  fortunate  listen  to  the  words 
of  leaders  whose  names  fill  the  ear  of  the  world. 

The  organization  of  the  French  Assembly  is 
in  the  main  similar  to  that  of  the  British  Com- 
mons.    Its  leaders  are  the  executive  officers  of 


124  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

the  government,  and  are  chosen  from  the  ranks 
of  the  legislative  majority  by  the  President  of 
the  Republic,  much  as  English  cabinets  are 
chosen  by  English  sovereigns.  They  too  are  re- 
sponsible for  their  policy  and  the  acts  of  their 
administration  to  the  Chamber  which  they  lead. 
They,  like  their  British  prototypes,  are  the  ex- 
ecutive committee  of  the  legislative  body,  and 
upon  its  will  their  tenure  of  office  depends. 

It  cannot  be  said,  however,  that  the  proceed- 
ings of  the  French  Assembly  very  closely  resem- 
ble those  of  the  British  Commons.  In  the  hall 
of  the  Deputies  there  are  no  close  benches  which 
face  each  other,  and  no  two  homogeneous  parties 
to  strive  for  the  mastery.  There  are  parties 
and  parties,  factions  and  factions,  coteries  and 
coteries.  There  are  Bonapartists  and  Legiti- 
matists.  Republicans  and  Clericals,  stubborn  re- 
actionists and  headlong  radicals,  stolid  con- 
servatives and  vindictive  destructionists.  One 
hears  of  the  Centre,  the  Right  Centre  and  the 
Left  Centre,  the  Right,  the  Left,  the  Extreme 
Right  and  the  Extreme  Left.  Some  of  these 
are,  of  course,  mere  factions,  mere  groups  of  ir- 
reconcilables ;  but  several  of  them  are,  on  the 
other  hand,  numerous  and  powerful  parties  upon 
whose  mutual  attractions  and  repulsions  depend 
the  formation,  the  authority,  and  the  duration  of 
cabinets. 


THE  HOUSE   OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       126 

Of  course,  too,  there  is  in  a  body  so  made 
ap  a  great  deal  of  combustible  material  which 
the  slightest  circumstance  suffices  to  kindle  into 
a  sudden  blaze.  The  Assembly  would  not  be 
French  if  it  were  not  always  excitable  and  some- 
times uproarious.  Absolute  turbulence  is  so 
probable  a  contingency  in  its  economy  that  a 
very  simple  and  quickly  applicable  device  is  pro- 
vided for  its  remedy.  Should  the  deputies  lose 
their  heads  altogether  and  become  unmanage- 
able, the  President  may  put  on  his  hat,  and  by 
that  sign,  unless  calm  be  immediately  restored, 
the  sitting  is  adjourned  for  one  hour,  at  the  ex- 
piration of  which  time  it  is  to  be  expected  that 
the  members  may  resume  the  business  of  the 
day  in  a  cooler  frame  of  mind.  There  are  other 
rules  of  procedure  observed  in  the  Chamber 
which  seem  to  foreign  eyes  at  first  sight  very 
novel ;  but  which  upon  closer  examination  may 
be  seen  to  differ  from  some  of  the  practices  of 
our  own  House  of  Representatives  in  form  rather 
than  in  essence.  In  France  greater  freedom  of 
speech  is  allowed  individual  members  than  is 
possible  under  committee  government,  but  rec- 
ognition is  not  given  to  just  any  one  who  first 
gets  the  floor  and  catches  the  presiding  officer's 
eye,  as  it  is  in  the  House  of  Commons,  where 
none  but  the  ministers  are  accorded  any  right 
of  precedence  in  gaining  a  hearing.     Those  who 


126  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

wish  to  speak  upon  any  pending  question  "  in- 
scribe "  their  names  beforehand  on  a  list  in  the 
keeping  of  the  President,  and  the  discussion  is 
usually  confined  to  those  members  who  have 
"  inscribed."  When  this  list  has  been  exhausted, 
the  President  takes  the  sense  of  the  Chamber 
as  to  whether  the  debate  shall  be  closed.  The 
Chamber  need  not  wait,  however,  to  hear  all  the 
gentlemen  who  have  put  their  names  upon  the 
list.  If  une  portion  notable  of  it  tires  sooner 
of  the  discussion  or  thinks  itself  sufficiently  in- 
formed before  all  who  wish  to  inform  it  have 
spoken,  it  may  demand  that  the  debate  be 
brought  to  an  end.  Of  course  such  a  demand 
will  not  be  heeded  if  it  come  from  only  a  few 
isolated  members,  and  even  une  portion  notable 
may  not  interrupt  a  speaker  with  this  peremp- 
tory call  for  what  we  should  denominate  the 
previous  question,  but  which  the  French  parlia- 
mentarian knows  as  the  clSture.  A  demand 
for  the  cldture  is  not  debatable.  One  speech 
may  be  made  against  it,  but  none  in  its  favor. 
[Jnless  it  meet  with  very  powerful  resistance, 
it  is  expected  to  go  through  of  its  own  weight. 
Even  the  cldture,  however,  must  give  way  if  a 
member  of  the  Ministry  claims  the  right  to 
(peak ;  for  a  minister  must  always  be  heard, 
ind  after  he  has  spoken,  moreover,  there  must 
always  be  allowed  one  speech  in  reply.     Neither 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       127 

can  the  cldture  be  pronounced  unless  a  major- 
ity of  the  deputies  are  present ;  and  in  case 
of  doubt  as  to  the  will  of  the  Chamber  in  the 
matter,  after  two  votes  have  been  taken  with- 
out eliciting  a  full-voiced  and  indubitable  as- 
sent, the  discussion  is  tacitly  suffered  to  pro- 
ceed. 

These  rules  are  not  quite  so  compulsive  and 
inexorable  as  are  those  which  sustain  the  govern- 
ment of  our  Standing  Committees,  nor  do  they 
seem  quite  imperative  enough  for  the  effectual 
governance  of  rampant  deputies  in  their  mo- 
ments of  wildest  excitement ;  but  they  are  some- 
what more  rigid  than  one  would  expect  to  find 
under  a  system  of  ministerial  responsibility, 
the  purity  of  whose  atmosphere  depends  so  di- 
rectly upon  a  free  circulation  of  debate.  They 
are  meant  for  a  body  of  peculiar  habits  and 
a  fiery  temperament,  —  a  body  which  is  often 
brought  screaming  to  its  feet  by  the  words  of  a 
passionate  speaker,  which  is  time  and  again  be- 
trayed into  stormy  disquiet,  and  which  is  ever 
being  blown  about  by  every  passing  wind  of  ex- 
citement. Even  in  its  minor  points  of  observ- 
ance, the  Chamber  is  essentially  un-English. 
Members  do  not  speak  from  their  seats,  as  we 
are  accustomed  to  see  members  of  our  public 
assemblies  do,  but  from  the  "  tribune,"  which 
is   a  conspicuous    structure    erected   near  the 


128  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

desks  of  the  President  and  secretaries,  —  a 
box-like  stand,  closely  resembling  those  narrow, 
quaintly-fashioned  pulpits  which  are  still  to  be 
seen  in  some  of  the  oldest  of  our  American 
churches.  And  since  deputies  must  gain  its 
commanding  top  before  they  may  speak,  there 
are  said  to  be  many  exciting  races  for  this  place 
of  vantage.  Sometimes,  indeed,  very  unseemly 
scenes  take  place,  when  several  deputies,  all 
equally  eager  to  mount  the  coveted  stand,  reach 
its  narrow  steps  at  the  same  moment  and  con- 
test the  privilege  of  precedence,  —  especially  if 
their  friends  rally  in  numbers  to  their  assistance. 
The  British  House  of  Commons  and  the  French 
Chamber,  though  so  imlike  in  the  elements  which 
compose  them,  and  so  dissimilar  in  their  modes 
of  procedure,  are  easily  seen  to  be  alike  in  con- 
stitutional significance,  being  made  close  kin  by 
the  principle  of  cabinet  government,  which  they 
both  recognize  and  both  apply  in  its  fullest 
efficacy.  In  both  England  and  France  a  min- 
istry composed  of  the  chief  officers  of  the  ex- 
ecutive departments  are  constituted  at  once  the 
leaders  of  legislation  and  the  responsible  heads 
of  administration,  —  a  binding  link  between  the 
legislative  and  executive  branches  of  the  govern- 
ment. In  this  regard  these  two  systems  present 
a  strong  contrast  to  our  own.  They  recognize 
and  support  simple,  straightforward,  inartificial 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       129 

party  government,  under  a  standing  committee 
of  responsible  party  leaders,  bringing  legislature 
and  executive  side  by  side  in  intimate  but  open 
cooperation  ;  whilst  we,  preferring  to  keep  Con- 
gress and  the  departments  at  arm's  length,  per- 
mit only  a  less  direct  government  by  party  ma- 
jorities, checking  party  action  by  a  complex 
legislative  machinery  of  two  score  and  eight 
composite,  semi  -  ministerial  Committees.  The 
English  take  their  parties  straight,  —  we  take 
ours  mixed. 

There  is  another  aspect,  however,  in  which  all 
three  of  these  systems  are  alike.  They  are  alike 
in  their  essential  purpose,  which  is  to  enable  a 
mass  meeting  of  representatives  to  superintend 
administration  and  get  good  laws  made.  Con- 
gress does  not  deal  so  directly  with  our  execu- 
tive as  do  the  French  and  English  parliaments 
with  theirs,  and  cannot,  therefore,  control  it 
qxiite  so  effectually ;  there  is  a  great  deal  of 
friction  amongst  the  many  wheels  of  committee 
government ;  but,  in  the  long  run.  Congress  is 
quite  as  omnipotent  as  either  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies  or  the  House  of  Commons ;  and, 
whether  there  be  two  score  committees  with 
functions  mainly  legislative,  or  only  one  with 
functions  half  legislative,  half  executive,  we 
have  one  form  or  another  of  something  like 
Mr.  Mill's  "legislative  commission." 
9 


in. 

THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 
REVENUE   AND   SUPPLY. 

The  highest  works  of  statesmanship  require  these  three  tilings  :  Great 
power  in  the  minister,  genius  to  counsel  and  support  him,  enlightenment 
in  parliament  to  weigh  and  decide  upon  his  plans.  —  Psofessor  Seeixt. 

When  men  are  not  acquainted  with  each  other's  principles,  nor  expe- 
rienced in  each  other's  talents,  nor  at  all  practiced  in  their  mutual  habi- 
tudes aud  dispositions  by  joint  efforts  of  business  ;  no  personal  confidence, 
no  friendship,  no  common  interest  subsisting  among  them  ;  it  is  evidently 
impossible  that  they  can  act  a  public  part  with  uniformity,  perseverance, 
or  efficacy.  —  Burke. 

"  It  requires,"  says  Mr.  Bagehot,  "  a  great 
deal  of  time  to  have  opinions,"  and  if  one  is  to 
judge  from  the  legislative  experience  of  some 
very  enlightened  nations,  it  requires  more  time 
to  have  opinions  about  finance  than  about  any 
other  subject.  At  any  rate,  very  few  nations 
have  found  time  to  have  correct  opinions  about 
it.  Governments  which  never  consult  the  gov- 
erned are  usually  content  with  very  shabby, 
short-sighted  methods  of  taxation, — with  any 
methods,  indeed,  which  can  be  made  to  yield  the 
desired  revenues  without  much  trouble  ;  and  the 
agents  of  a  self-governing  people  are  quite  sure 


THE  HOUSE  OF  liilPRESENTATIVES.       131 

to  be  too  busy  with  elections  and  party  manage- 
ment to  have  leisure  to  improve  much  upon  the 
practices  of  autocrats  in  regard  to  this  impor- 
tant care  of  administration.  And  yet  this  sub- 
ject of  finance  seems  to  be  interesting  enough 
in  a  way.  It  is  one  of  the  commonplaces  of 
our  history  that,  ever  since  long  before  we  came 
westward  across  the  ocean,  we  have  been  readier 
to  fight  about  taxation  than  about  any  other  one 
thing,  —  than  about  a  good  many  other  things 
put  together,  indeed.  There  are  several  sadly 
bloody  spots  in  the  financial  history  of  our  race. 
It  could  probably  be  shown,  however,  if  one 
cared  to  take  time  to  show  it,  that 'it  is  easy  to 
get  vexed  about  mismanagement  of  the  finances 
without  knowing  how  they  might  be  better  man- 
aged. What  we  do  not  like  is  that  we  are  taxed, 
—  not  that  we  are  stupidly  taxed.  We  do  not 
need  to  be  political  economists  to  get  angry 
about  it ;  and  when  we  have  gotten  angry  about 
it  in  the  past  our  rulers  have  not  troubled  them- 
selves to  study  political  economy  in  order  to  find 
out  the  best  means  of  appeasing  us.  Generally 
they  have  simply  shifted  the  burden  from  the 
shoulders  of  those  who  complained,  and  were 
able  to  make  things  unpleasant,  to  the  shoulders 
of  those  who  might  complain,  but  could  not  give 
much  trouble. 

Of   course  there  are  some  taixes  which  are. 


132  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

much  more  hateful  than  others,  and  have  on  that 
account  to  be  laid  more  circumspectly.  All  di- 
rect taxes  are  heartily  disliked  by  every  one  who 
has  to  pay  them,  and  as  heartily  abused,  except 
by  those  who  have  never  owned  an  ounce  or  an 
inch  of  property,  and  have  never  seen  a  tax-bill. 
The  heart  of  the  ordinary  citizen  regards  them 
with  an  inborn  aversion.  They  are  so  straight- 
forward and  peremptory  in  their  demands.  They 
soften  their  exactions  with  not  a  grain  of  con- 
sideration. The  tax-collector,  consequently,  is 
never  esteemed  a  lovable  man.  His  methods 
are  too  blimt,  and  his  powers  too  obnoxious. 
He  comes  to  us,  not  with  a  "  please,"  but  with 
a  "  must."  His  requisitions  always  leave  our 
pockets  lighter  and  our  hearts  heavier.  We 
cannot,  for  the  life  of  us,  help  thinking,  as 
we  fold  up  his  receipt  and  put  it  away,  that 
government  is  much  too  expensive  a  luxury  as 
nowadays  conducted,  and  that  that  receipt  is 
incontestable  documentary  proof  of  unendurable 
extortion.  What  we  do  not  realize  is,  that  life 
would  be  robbed  of  one  of  its  chief  satisfactions 
if  this  occasion  of  grumbling  were  to  be  taken 
away. 

Indirect  taxes,  on  the  other  hand,  offend 
scarcely  anybody.  It  is  one  of  the  open  secrets 
of  finance  that  in  almost  every  system  of  taxa- 
tion the  indirect  overcrow  the  direct  taxes  by 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       133 

many  millions,  and  have  a  knack  for  levying 
on  the  small  resources  of  insignificant  persons 
which  direct  taxes  have  never  learned.  They 
know  how  to  coax  pennies  out  of  poor  people 
whose  names  have  never  been  on  the  tax-collec- 
tor's books.  But  they  are  very  sly,  and  have  at 
command  a  thousand  successful  disguises.  High 
or  complicated  tariffs  afford  them  their  most  fre- 
quent and  abundant  opportunities.  Most  people 
have  very  short  thoughts,  which  do  not  extend 
beyond  the  immediate  phenomena  of  direct 
vision,  and  so  do  not  recognize  the  hand  of 
the  government  in  the  high  prices  charged  them 
in  the  shops.  Very  few  of  us  taste  the  tariiff  in 
our  sugar ;  and  I  suppose  that  even  very  thought- 
ful topers  do  not  perceive  the  license-tax  in  their 
whiskey.  There  is  little  wonder  that  financiers 
have  always  been  nervous  in  dealing  with  direct, 
but  confident  and  free  of  hand  in  laying  indirect, 
taxes. 

It  may,  therefore,  be  accounted  one  of  the 
customary  advantages  which  our  federal  govern- 
ment possesses  over  the  governments  of  the 
States,  that  it  has  almost  always,  in  ordinary 
times,  derived  its  entire  revenue  from  prompt 
and  facile  indirect  taxes,  whilst  the  States  have 
had  to  live  upon  the  tardy  and  begrudged  income 
derivable  from  a  direct  levy.  Since  we  have 
had  to  support  two  governments   it  has  been 


134  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

wisely  resolved  to  let  us,  as  long  as  possible,  feel 
the  weight  of  only  one  of  them,  —  and  that  the 
one  which  can  get  at  us  most  readily,  and,  at  * 
the  same  time,  be  most  easily  and  promptly  con- 
trolled by  our  votes.  It  is  a  plain,  convenient, 
and,  on  the  whole,  satisfactoiy  division  of  do- 
main, though  the  responsibility  which  it  throws 
on  state  legislatures  is  more  apt  to  pinch  and 
prove  vexatious  than  is  that  which  it  lays  upon 
Congress.  Mr.  Gladstone,  the  greatest  of  Eng- 
lish financiers,  once  playfully  described  direct 
and  indirect  taxes  as  two  sisters,  —  daughters 
of  Necessity  and  Invention,  —  "  differing  only 
as  sisters  may  differ,  .  .  .  the  one  being  more 
free  and  open,  the  other  somewhat  more  shy, 
retiring,  and  insinuating ;"  and  frankly  owned 
that,  whether  from  "a  lax  sense  of  moral  ob- 
ligation or  not,"  he,  as  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer, "  thought  it  not  only  allowable,  but 
even  an  act  of  duty,  to  pay  his  addresses  to  them 
both."  But  our  chancellors  of  the  exchequer, 
the  chairmen  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and 
Means,  are  bound  by  other  traditions  of  court- 
ship, and  have,  besides,  usually  shown  no  suscep- 
tibility to  the  charms  of  the  blunt  and  forward 
elder  of  these  two  sisters.  They  have  been  con- 
stant, even  if  now  and  again  a  little  wayward, 
in  their  devotion  to  the  younger. 

I  suppose  that  no  one  ever  found  the  paths  of 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       135 

finance  less  thorny  and  arduous  than  have  our 
national  publicists.  If  their  tasks  be  compared 
with  those  of  European  and  English  financiers, 
it  is  plain  to  see  that  their  lines  have  fallen  in 
pleasant  places.  From  almost  the  very  fiist  they 
have  had  boundless  resources  to  draw  upon,  and 
they  have  certainly  of  late  days  had  free  leave 
to  spend  limitless  revenues  in  what  extravagances 
they  pleased.  It  has  come  to  be  infinitely  more 
trouble  to  spend  our  enormous  national  income 
than  to  collect  it.  The  chief  embarrassments 
have  arisen,  not  from  deficits,  but  from  sur- 
pluses. It  is  very  fortunate  that  such  has  been 
the  case,  because  for  the  best  management  of  the 
finances  of  a  nation,  when  revenue  is  scant  and 
economy  imperative,  it  is  absolutely  necessary 
to  have  financial  administration  in  the  hands 
of  a  few  highly-trained  and  skillful  men  acting 
subject  to  a  very  strict  responsibility,  and  this  is 
just  what  our  committee  system  does  not  allow. 
As  in  other  matters  of  legislation,  so  in  finance, 
we  have  many  masters  acting  under  a  very  dim 
and  inoperative  accountability.  Of  course  under 
such  ministration  our  financial  policy  has  always 
been  unstable,  and  has  often  strayed  very  far 
from  the  paths  of  wisdom  and  providence ;  for 
even  when  revenue  is  superabundant  and  ex- 
travagance easy,  irresponsible,  fast  and  loose 
methods  of  taxation  and  expenditure  must  work 


136  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

infinite  harm.  The  only  difference  is  that  during 
such  times  the  nation  is  not  so  sensitive  to  the  lU 
effects  wrought  by  careless  policy.  Mismanage- 
ment is  not  generally  blamed  until  a  great  many 
people  have  discovered  it  by  being  hurt  by  it. 
Meantime,  however,  it  is  none  the  less  interest- 
ing and  important  to  study  our  government,  with 
a  view  to  gauging  its  qualities  and  measuring 
accurately  its  capabilities  for  good  or  bad  ser- 
vice ;  and  the  study  can  doubtless  be  much  more 
dispassionately  conducted  before  we  have  been 
seriously  hurt  by  foolish,  unsteady  administra- 
tion than  afterwards.  The  forces  of  the  wind 
can  be  reckoned  with  much  more  readily  while 
they  are  blowing  only  a  gale  than  after  they 
have  thrown  a  hurricane  upon  us. 

The  national  income  is  controlled  by  one  Com- 
mittee of  the  House  and  one  of  the  Senate ;  the 
expenditures  of  the  government  are  regulated 
by  fifteen  Committees  of  the  House  and  five  of 
the  Senate  ;  and  the  currency  is  cared  for  by 
two  Committees  of  the  House  and  one  of  the 
Senate ;  by  all  of  which  it  appears  that  the 
financial  administration  of  the  country  is  in 
the  hands  of  twenty-four  Committees  of  Con- 
gress, —  a  mechanism  of  numerous  small  and 
great  fimctions,  quite  complex  enough  to  be 
worth  careful  study,  perhaps  too  complex  to  be 
studied  directly  without  an  aiding  knowledge  of 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       137 

some  simpler  system  with  which  it  may  be  com- 
pared. Our  own  budget  may  be  more  readily 
followed  through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  com- 
mittee scrutiny,  and  all  the  varied  fortunes  of 
committee  action,  after  one  has  traced  some  other 
budget  through  the  simpler  processes  of  some 
other  system  of  government. 

The  British  system  is,  perhaps,  in  its  main 
features,  the  simplest  in  existence.  It  is,  be- 
sides, the  pattern  after  which  the  financial  sys- 
tems of  the  chief  governments  of  Europe  have 
been  modeled,  and  which  we  have  ourselves  in 
a  measure  copied  ;  so  that  by  prefacing  the  study 
of  other  systems  by  a  careful  examination  of  the 
British,  in  its  present  form,  one  may  start  with 
the  great  advantage  of  knowing  the  character- 
istics of  what  may  fairly  be  called  the  parent 
stock.  Parliament,  then,  in  the  first  place, 
simply  controls,  it  does  not  originate,  measures 
of  financial  administration.  It  acts  through  the 
agency  and  under  the  guidance  of  the  ministers 
of  the  Crown.  Early  in  each  annual  session 
"  the  estimates  "  are  submitted  to  the  Commons, 
which,  when  hearing  such  statements,  sits  in 
Committee  of  the  Whole  House,  known  as  Com- 
mittee of  Supply.  The  estimates  come  before 
the  House  in  truly  formidable  shape.  Each  de- 
partment presents  its  estimates  in  a  huge  quarto 
volume,   "crammed   with    figures   and   minute 


138  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

entries  of  moneys  wanted  for  the  forthcoming 
year."  ^  But  the  House  itself  does  not  have  to 
digest  this  various  and  overwhehning  mass  of 
figures.  The  digesting  is  done  in  the  first  in- 
stance by  the  official  leaders  of  the  House. 
"  The  ministers  in  charge  of  the  naval  and  mili- 
tary services  lay  before  the  Committee  [of  Sup- 
ply] their  respective  statements  of  the  sums 
which  will  be  required  for  the  maintenance  of 
those  services ;  and  somewhat  later  in  the  ses- 
sion a  common  estimate  for  the  various  civil  ser- 
vices is  submitted  also."  Those  statements  are, 
as  it  were,  condensed  synopses  of  the  details  of 
the  quartos,  and  are  made  with  the  object  of 
rendering  quite  clear  to  the  House,  sitting  under 
the  informal  rules  of  Committee,  the  policy  of 
the  expenditures  proposed  and  the  correctness 
of  the  calculations  upon  which  they  are  based. 
Any  member  may  ask  what  pertinent  questions 
he  pleases  of  the  minister  who  is  making  the 
statement,  so  that  nothing  needing  elucidation 
Tnay  be  passed  by  without  full  explanation. 
After  the  statement  has  been  completed  to  the 
satisfaction  of  the  Committee,  a  vote  is  taken,  at 
the  motion  of  the  minister,  upon   each  item  of 

^  The  National  Budget,  etc.  (English  Citizen  Series),  p.  146, 
In  what  I  have  to  saj-  of  the  English  system,  I  follow  this 
volume,  pp.  146-149,  and  another  volume  of  the  same  admir- 
able series,  entitled  Central  Government,  pp.  36-47,  most  of 
my  quotations  being  from  the  latter. 


TEE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       139 

expenditure,  and  the  duties  of  the  Committee  of 
Supply  have  been  performed. 

The  estimates  are  always  submitted  "  on  the 
collective  responsibility  of  the  whole  cabinet." 
"  The  army  and  navy  estimates  have,  as  a  rule, 
been  considered  and  settled  in  cabinet  council 
before  being  submitted  to  the  House  ;  and  the 
collective  responsibility  of  the  Ministry  is  in  this 
case,  therefore,  not  technical  merely,  but  sub- 
stantial." If  the  estimates  are  resisted  and  re- 
jected by  the  Committee,  the  ministers,  of  course, 
resign.  They  "  cannot  acquiesce  in  a  refusal  on 
the  part  of  parliament  to  sanction  the  expendi- 
ture which  "  they  "  have  assumed  the  responsi- 
bility of  declaring  necessary  for  the  support  of 
the  civil  government,  and  the  maintenance  of  the 
public  credit  at  home  and  abroad."  The  votes 
in  Committee  of  Supply  are,  therefore,  vital  in 
the  history  of  every  administration,  being  taken 
as  sure  indexes  of  the  amount  of  confidence 
placed  by  the  House  in  the  government. 

But  the  votes  in  Committee  of  Supply  are  only 
the  first  steps  in  parliament's  annual  supervision 
of  the  public  finances.  They  are  simply  the 
spending  votes.  In  order  to  consider  the  means 
by  which  money  is  to  be  raised  to  meet  the  out- 
lays sanctioned  by  the  Committee  of  Supply,  the 
House  resolves  itself  into  Committee  of  the 
Whole,  under  the  name  of  the  Committee  of  Ways 


140  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

and  Means.  It  is  to  this  Committee  that  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  submits  his  budget 
every  year,  on  or  soon  before  the  fifth  of  April, 
the  date  at  which  the  national  accounts  are  made 
up,  the  financial  year  closing  on  the  thirty-first 
of  March.  In  order  to  prepare  his  budget,  the 
Chancellor  must  of  course  have  early  knowledge 
of  the  estimates  made  for  the  various  services. 
Several  months,  therefore,  before  the  estimates 
are  laid  before  the  House  in  Committee  of  Sup- 
ply, the  various  departments  are  called  upon  by 
the  Treasury  to  send  in  statements  of  the  sums 
required  to  defray  the  expenses  of  the  current 
year,  and  these  estimates  are  carefully  examined 
by  the  Chancellor,  with  a  view  not  only  to  ex- 
ercising his  duty  of  keeping  the  expenditures 
within  the  limits  of  economy,  but  also  to  ascer- 
taining how  much  revenue  he  will  have  to  secure 
in  order  to  meet  the  proper  expenditure  con- 
templated. He  must  balance  estimated  needs 
over  against  estimated  resources,  and  advise  the 
House  in  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  as  to 
the  measures  by  which  taxation  is  to  be  made  to 
afford  sufficient  revenue.  Accordingly  he  calls 
in  the  aid  of  the  permanent  heads  of  the  revenue 
departments  who  furnish  him  with  "their  esti- 
mates of  the  public  revenue  for  the  ensuing  year, 
upon  the  hypothesis  that  taxation  will  remain 
unchanged." 


TEE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.      141 

Having  with  such  aids  made  up  his  budget, 
the  Chancellor  goes  before  the  Committee  of 
Ways  and  Means  prepared  to  give  a  clear  his- 
tory of  the  financial  administration  of  the  year 
just  closed,  and  to  submit  definite  plans  for 
adjusting  the  taxation  and  providing  for  the 
expected  outlays  of  the  year  just  opening.  The 
precedents  of  a  wise  policy  of  long  standing  for- 
bid his  proposing  to  raise  any  greater  revenue 
than  is  absolutely  necessary  for  the  support  of 
the  government  and  the  maintenance  of  the  pub- 
lic credit.  He  therefore  never  asks  the  Com- 
mittee to  lay  taxes  which  promise  a  considerable 
surplus.  He  seeks  to  obtain  only  such  an  over- 
plus of  income  as  will  secure  the  government 
against  those  slight  errors  of  underestimation 
of  probable  expenses  or  of  ovei  estimation  of 
probable  revenue  as  the  most  prudent  of  ad- 
ministrations is  liable  to  make.  If  the  estimated 
revenue  considerably  exceed  the  estimated  ex- 
penses, he  proposes  such  remissions  of  taxation 
as  will  bring  the  balance  as  near  equality  as 
prudence  will  permit ;  if  the  anticipated  expenses 
run  beyond  the  figure  of  the  hoped-for  revenue, 
lie  asks  that  certain  new  taxes  be  laid,  or  that 
certain  existing  taxes  be  increased ;  if  the  bal- 
ance between  the  two  sides  of  the  forecast  account 
shows  a  pretty  near  approach  to  equilibrium,  so 
the  scale  of  revenue  be  but  a  little  the  heavier 


142  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

of  the  two,  he  contents  himself  with  suggesting 
such  a  readjustment  of  existing  taxes  as  will  be 
likely  to  distribute  the  burden  of  taxation  more 
equitably  amongst  the  tax-paying  classes,  or  fa- 
cilitate hampered  collections  by  simplifying  the 
complex  methods  of  assessment  and  imposition. 
Such  is  the  budget  statement  to  which  the 
House  of  Commons  listens  in  Committee  of 
Ways  and  Means.  This  Committee  may  deal 
with  the  proposals  of  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  with  somewhat  freer  hand  than  the 
Committee  of  Supply  may  use  in  passing  upon 
the  estimates.  The  Ministry  is  not  so  stiffly 
insistent  upon  having  its  budget  sanctioned  as 
it  is  upon  having  its  proposed  expenditures  ap 
proved.  It  is  understood  to  pledge  itself  to  aslr 
for  no  more  money  than  it  honestly  needs ;  but 
it  simply  advises  with  the  House  as  to  the  best 
way  of  raising  that  money.  It  is  punctiliously 
particular  about  being  supplied  with  the  funds 
it  asks  for,  but  not  quite  so  exacting  as  to  the 
ways  and  means  of  supply.  Still,  no  Ministry 
can  stand  if  the  budget  be  rejected  out  of  hand, 
or  if  its  demands  for  the  means  of  meeting  a 
deficiency  be  met  with  a  flat  refusal,  no  alterna- 
tive means  being  suggested  by  the  Opposition. 
Such  votes  would  be  distinct  declarations  of  a 
want  of  confidence  in  the  Ministry,  and  woula 
of  course  force  them  to  resign. 


THE  HOUSE   OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       143 

The  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  then, 
carries  out,  under  the  guidance  of  the  Chancel- 
lor of  the  Exchequer,  the  resolutions  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  Supply.  The  votes  of  the  latter  Com- 
mittee, authorizing  the  expenditures  mapped  out 
in  the  estimates,  are  embodied  in  "  a  resolution 
proposed  in  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  for 
a  general  grant  out  of  the  Consolidated  Fund 
Howards  making  good  the  supply  granted  to 
Her  Majesty;'"  and  that  resolution,  in  order 
that  it  may  be  prepared  for  the  consideration  of 
the  House  of  Lords^and  the  Crown,  is  afterwards 
cast  by  the  House  into  the  form  of  a  Bill,  which 
passes  tLfough  the  regular  stages  and  in  due 
course  becomes  law.  The  proposals  of  the  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer  with  reference  to  changes 
in  taxation  are  in  like  manner  embodied  in  reso- 
lutions in  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  and 
subsequently,  upon  the  report  of  the  Commit- 
tee, passed  by  the  House  in  the  shape  of  Bills, 
"  Ways  and  Means  Bills "  generally  pass  the 
Lords  without  trouble.  The  absolute  control  of 
the  Commons  over  the  subjects  of  revenue  and 
supply  has  been  so  long  established  that  the 
upper  House  would  not  now  dream  of  disputing 
it ;  and  as  the  power  of  the  Lords  is  simply  a 
privilege  to  accept  or  reject  a  money  bill  as  a, 
whole,  including  no  right  to  amend,  the  peers  are 
wont  to  let  such  bills  go  through  without  much 
scrutiny. 


144  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

But  SO  far  I  have  spoken  only  of  that  part 
of  parliament's  control  of  the  finances  which 
concerns  the  future.  The  "Ways  and  Means 
Bills"  provide  for  coming  expenses  and  a  pro. 
spective  revenue.  Past  expenses  are  supervised 
in  a  different  way.  There  is  a  double  process  of 
audit  by  means  of  a  special  Audit  Department 
of  the  Civil  Service,  which  is,  of  course,  a 
part  of  the  permanent  organization  of  the  ad- 
ministration, having  it  in  charge  "  to  examine 
the  accounts  and  vouchers  of  the  entire  expendi- 
ture," and  a  special  committee  nominated  each 
year  by  the  House  "to  audit  the  Audit  Depart- 
ment." This  committee  is  usually  made  up  of 
the  most  experienced  business  men  in  the  Com- 
mons, and  before  it  "all  the  accounts  of  the 
completed  financial  year  are  passed  in  review." 
"  Minute  inquiries  are  occasionally  made  by  it 
into  the  reasons  why  certain  items  of  expendi- 
ture have  occurred  ;  it  discusses  claims  for  com- 
pensation, grants,  and  special  disbursements,  in 
addition  to  the  ordinary  outgoings  of  the  depart- 
ment, mainly,  to  be  sure,  upon  the  information 
and  advice  of  the  departments  themselves,  but 
still  with  a  certain  independence  of  view  and 
judgment  which  must  be  valuable." 

The  strictness  and  explicitness  with  which  the 
public  accounts  are  kept  of  course  greatly  facil- 
itate the  process  of  audit.    The  balance  which  is 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       145 

struck  on  the  thirty-first  of  every  March  is  of  the 
most  definite  sort.  It  deals  only  with  the  actuai 
receipts  and  disbursements  of  the  completed  fiscal 
year.  At  that  date  all  unexpended  credits  lapse. 
If  the  expenditure  of  certain  smns  has  been 
sanctioned  by  parliamejptary  vote,  but  some  of 
the  granted  moneys  remain  undrawn  when  April 
comes  in,  they  can  be  used  only  after  a  regrant 
by  the  Commons.  There  are,  therefore,  no  un 
closed  accounts  to  obscure  the  view  of  the  audit- 
ing authorities.  Taxes  and  credits  have  the  same 
definite  period,  and  there  are  no  arrears  or  unex- 
pended balances  to  confuse  the  book-keeping. 
The  great  advantages  of  such  a  system  in  the 
way  of  checking  extravagances  which  would 
otherwise  be  possible,  may  be  seen  by  comparing 
it  with  the  system  in  vogue  in  France,  in  whose 
national  balance-sheet  "  arrears  of  taxes  in  one 
year  overlap  with  those  of  other  years,"  and 
"credits  old  jostle  credits  new,"  so  that  it  is 
said  to  be  "always  three  or  four  years  before 
the  nation  can  know  what  the  definitive  expen- 
diture of  a  given  year  is." 

For  the  completion  of  this  sketch  of  financial 
administration  under  the  Commons  it  is  of  course 
necessary  to  add  a  very  distinct  statement  of 
what  I  may  call  the  accessibility  of  the  financial 
officers  of  the  government.  They  are  always 
present  to  be  questioned.  The  Treasury  depart- 
10 


146  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

ment  is,  as  becomes  its  importance,  exceptionally 
well  represented  in  the  House.  The  Chancel- 
lor of  the  Exchequer,  the  working  chief  of  the 
department,  is  invariably  a  member  of  the  Com- 
mons, "  and  can  be  called  to  account  by  interro- 
gation or  motion  with  respect  to  all  matters  of 
Treasury  concern "  —  with  respect,  that  is,  to 
well-nigh  "the  whole  sphere  of  the  discipline 
and  economy  of  the  Executive  Government ;  " 
for  the  Treasury  has  wide  powers  of  supervision 
over  the  other  departments  in  all  matters  which 
may  in  any  way  involve  an  outlay  of  public 
money.  "And  not  only  does  the  invariable  pres- 
ence of  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  in  the 
House  of  Commons  make  the  representation  of 
that  department  peculiarly  direct,  but,  through 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and,  with  respect 
to  certain  departmental  matters,  through  the 
Junior  Lords,  the  House  possesses  peculiar  facil- 
ities for  ascertaining  and  expressing  its  opinion 
upon  the  details  of  Treasury  administration." 
It  has  its  responsible  servants  always  before  it, 
and  can  obtain  what  glimpses  it  pleases  into  the 
inner  workings  of  the  departments  which  it  wishes 
to  control. 

It  is  just  at  this  point  that  our  own  system  of 
financial  administration  differs  most  essentially 
from  the  systems  of  England,  of  the  Continent, 
and  of   the  British  colonial  possessions.     Con. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       147 

gress  does  not  come  into  direct  contact  with  the 
financial  officers  of  the  government.  Executive 
and  legislature  are  separated  by  a  hard  and  fast 
line,  which  sets  them  apart  in  what  was  meant  to 
be  independence,  but  has  come  to  amount  to  iso- 
lation. Correspondence  between  them  is  carried 
on  by  means  of  written  communications,  which, 
like  all  formal  writings,  are  vague,  or  by  means 
of  private  examinations  of  officials  in  committee- 
rooms  to  which  the  whole  House  cannot  be 
audience.  No  one  who  has  read  official  docu- 
ments needs  to  be  told  how  easy  it  is  to  conceal 
the  essential  truth  under  the  apparently  candid 
and  all-disclosing  phrases  of  a  voluminous  and 
particularizing  report;  how  different  those  auv 
swers  are  which  are  given  with  the  pen  from 
a  private  office  from  those  which  are  given  with 
the  tongue  when  the  speaker  is  looking  an  as- 
sembly in  the  face.  It  is  sufficiently  plain,  too, 
that  resolutions  which  call  upon  officials  to  give 
testimony  before  a  committee  are  a  much  clum- 
sier and  less  efficient  means  of  eliciting  informa- 
tion than  is  a  running  fire  of  questions  addressed 
to  ministers  who  are  always  in  their  places  in 
the  House  to  reply  publicly  to  all  interrogations. 
It  is  reasonable  to  conclude,  therefore,  that  the 
House  of  Representatives  is  much  less  intimately 
acquainted  with  the  details  of  federal  Treasury 
affairs   than  is   such  a  body  as  the   House  of 


148  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

Commons,  with  the  particulars  of  management 
in  the  Treasury  which  it  oversees  by  direct  and 
constant  communication  with  the  chief  Treasury 
officials. 

This  is  the  greater  drawback  in  our  system, 
because,  as  a  further  result  of  its  complete  sep- 
aration from  the  executive.  Congress  has  to  orig- 
inate and  perfect  the  budget  for  itself.  It  does 
not  hear  the  estimates  translated  and  expounded 
in  condensed  statements  by  skilled  officials  who 
have  made  it  their  business,  because  it  is  to  their 
interest,  to  know  thoroughly  what  they  are  talk- 
ing about;  nor  does  it  have  the  benefit  of  the 
guidance  of  a  trained,  practical  financier  when 
it  has  to  determine  questions  of  revenue.  The 
Treasury  is  not  consulted  with  reference  to  prob- 
lems of  taxation,  and  motions  of  supply  are  dis- 
posed of  with  no  suggestions  from  the  depart- 
ments beyond  an  itemized  statement  of  the 
amounts  needed  to  meet  the  regular  expenses  of 
an  opening  fiscal  year. 

In  federal  book-keeping  the  fiscal  year  closes 
on  the  thirtieth  of  June.  Several  months  before 
that  year  expires,  however,  the  estimates  for  the 
twelve  months  which  are  to  succeed  are  made 
ready  for  the  use  of  Congress.  In  the  autumn 
each  department  and  bureau  of  the  public  service 
reckons  its  pecxmiary  needs  for  the  fiscal  year 
which  is  to  begin  on  the  following  first  of  July 


THE  BOUSE   OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       149 

(making  explanatory  notes,  and  here  and  there 
an  interjected  prayer  for  some  unwonted  expen- 
diture, amongst  the  columns  of  figures),  and 
sends  the  resulting  document  to  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury.  These  reports,  including  of 
course  the  estimates  of  the  various  bureaux  of 
his  own  department,  the  Secretary  has  printed  in 
a  thin  quarto  volume  of  some  three  hundred  and 
twenty-five  pages,  which  for  some  reason  or  oth- 
er, not  quite  apparent,  is  called  a  "  Letter  from 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  transmitting  esti- 
mates of  appropriations  required  for  the  fiscal 
year  ending  June  30,"  .  .  .  and  which  boasts  a 
very  distinct  arrangement  under  the  heads  Civil 
Establishment,  Military  Establishment,  Naval 
Establishment,  Indian  Affairs,  Pensions,  Publip 
Works,  Postal  Service,  etc.,  a  convenient  sum- 
mary of  the  chief  items,  and  a  complete  index. 

In  December  this  "  Letter  "  is  sent,  as  a  part 
of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury's  annual  report 
to  Congress,  to  the  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  immediately  after  the  conven- 
ing of  that  body,  and  is  referred  to  the  Standing 
Committee  on  Appropriations.  The  House  it- 
self does  not  hear  the  estimates  read  ;  it  simply 
passes  the  thin  quartos  over  to  the  Committee  ; 
though,  of  course,  copies  of  it  may  be  procured 
and  studied  by  any  member  who  chooses  to  scru- 
tinize the  staring  pages  of  columned  figures  with 


160  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

the  dutiful  purpose  of  keeping  an  eye  upon  the 
uses  made  of  the  public  revenue.  Taking  these 
estimates  into  consideration,  the  Committee  on 
Appropriations  found  upon  them  the  "general 
appropriation  bills,"  which  the  rules  require 
them  to  report  to  the  House  "  within  thirty 
days  after  their  appointment,  at  every  session 
of  Congress,  commencing  on  the  first  Monday 
in  December,"  unless  they  can  give  satisfactory 
reasons  in  writing  for  not  doing  so.  The  "  gen- 
eral appropriation  bills  "  provide  separately  for 
legislative,  executive,  and  judicial  expenses ;  for 
sundry  civil  expenses ;  for  consular  and  diplo- 
matic expenses ;  for  the  Army  ;  for  the  Navy ; 
for  the  expenses  of  the  Indian  department ;  for 
the  payment  of  invalid  and  other  pensions ;  for 
the  support  of  the  Military  Academy ;  for  for- 
tifications ;  for  the  service  of  the  Post-Office  de- 
partment, and  for  mail  transportation  by  ocean 
steamers. 

It  was  only  through  the  efforts  of  a  later-day 
spirit  of  vigilant  economy  that  this  practice  of 
making  the  appropriations  for  each  of  the  sev- 
eral branches  of  the  public  service  in  a  separate 
bill  was  established.  During  the  early  years 
of  the  Constitution  very  loose  methods  of  appro- 
priation prevailed.  All  the  moneys  for  the  year 
were  granted  in  a  single  bill,  entitled  "  An  Act 
making  Appropriations  for  the  support  of  the 


THE  HOUSE   OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       151 

Government ; "  and  there  was  no  attempt  to 
specify  the  objects  for  which  they  were  to  be 
spent.  The  gross  smn  given  could  be  applied  at 
the  discretion  of  the  heads  of  the  executive  de- 
partments, and  was  always  large  enough  to  allow 
much  freedom  in  the  undertaking  of  new  schemes 
of  administration,  and  in  the  making  of  such  ad- 
ditions to  the  clerical  force  of  the  different  offices 
as  might  seem  convenient  to  those  in  control. 
It  was  not  until  1862  that  the  present  practice 
of  somewhat  minutely  specifying  the  uses  to  be 
made  of  the  funds  appropriated  was  reached, 
though  Congress  had  for  many  years  been  by 
slow  stages  approaching  such  a  policy.  The 
history  of  appropriations  shows  that  "  there  has 
been  an  increasing  tendency  to  limit  the  discre- 
tion of  the  executive  departments,  and  bring  the 
details  of  expenditure  more  immediately  under 
the  annual  supervision  of  Congress ;  "  a  tendency 
which  has  specially  manifested  itself  since  the 
close  of  the  recent  war  between  the  States.^  In 
this,  as  in  other  things,  the  appetite  for  govern- 
ment on  the  part  of  Congress  has  grown  with 
that  perfection  of  organization  which  has  ren- 
dered the  gratification  of  its  desire  for  power 
easily  attainable.     In  this  matter  of  appropria- 

^  See  an  article  entitled  "  National  Appropriations  and  Mis- 
appropriations," by  the  late  President  Garfield,  North  Amerv 
<an  Review,  vol.  cxxviii.  pp  578  et  aeq. 


162  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

tions,  however,  increased  care  has  unquestionably 
resulted  in  a  very  decided  curtailment  of  extrava- 
gance in  departmental  expenditure,  though  Con- 
gress has  often  shown  a  blind  ardor  for  retrench- 
ment which  has  fallen  little  short  of  parsimony, 
and  which  could  not  have  found  place  in  its  leg- 
islation had  it  had  such  adequate  means  of  confi- 
dential communication  with  the  executive  depart- 
ments as  would  have  enabled  it  to  understand 
their  real  needs,  and  to  discriminate  between  true 
economy  and  those  scant  allowances  which  only 
give  birth  to  deficiencies,  and  which,  even  under 
the  luckiest  conditions,  serve  only  for  a  very 
brief  season  to  create  the  impression  which  they 
are  usually  meant  to  beget,  —  that  the  party  in 
power  is  the  party  of  thrift  and  honesty,  seeing 
in  former  appropriations  too  much  that  was  cor- 
rupt and  spendthrift,  and  desiring  to  turn  to  the 
good  ways  of  wisdom  and  frugality. 

There  are  some  portions  of  the  public  expen- 
diture which  do  not  depend  upon  the  annual 
gifts  of  Congress,  but  which  are  provided  for 
by  statutes  which  run  without  limit  of  date. 
These  are  what  are  known  as  the  "  permanent 
appropriations."  They  cover,  on  the  one  hand, 
such  indeterminate  charges  as  the  interest  on  the 
public  debt,  the  amounts  annually  paid  into  the 
sinking  fund,  the  outlays  of  refunding,  the  inter- 
est on  the  bonds  issued  to  the  Pacific  Railways  \ 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       163 

and,  on  the  other  hand,  such  specific  charges  as 
the  maintenance  of  the  militia  service,  the  costs 
of  the  collection  of  the  customs  revenue,  and  the 
interest  on  the  bequest  to  the  Smithsonian  Insti- 
tution. Their  aggregate  sum  constitutes  no  in- 
significant part  of  the  entire  public  expense.  In 
1880,  in  a  total  appropriation  of  about  $307,000,- 
000,  the  permanent  appropriations  fell  short  of 
the  annual  grant  by  only  about  sixteen  and  a  half 
millions.  In  later  years,  however,  the  proportion 
has  been  smaller,  one  of  the  principal  items,  the 
interest  on  the  public  debt,  becoming,  of  course, 
continually  less  as  the  debt  is  paid  off,  and  other 
items  reaching  less  amounts,  at  the  same  time 
that  the  figures  of  the  annual  grants  have  risen 
rather  than  fallen. 

With  these  permanent  grants  the  Committee 
on  Appropriations  has,  of  course,  nothing  to  do, 
except  that  estimates  of  the  moneys  to  be  drawn 
under  authority  of  such  grants  are  submitted  to 
its  examination  in  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury's 
"  Letter,"  along  with  the  estimates  for  which  spe- 
cial appropriations  ,are  asked.  Upon  these  latter 
estimates  the  general  appropriations  are  based. 
The  Committee  may  report  its  bills  at  any  stage 
of  the  House's  business,  provided  only  that  it  does 
not  interrupt  a  member  who  is  speaking;  and 
these  bills  when  reported  may  at  any  time,  by  a 
majority  vote,  be  made  a  special  order  of  the  day. 


154  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

Of  course  their  consideration  is  the  most  impera- 
tive business  of  the  session.  They  must  be  passed 
before  the  end  of  June,  else  the  departments  will 
be  left  altogether  without  means  of  support.  The 
chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Appropriations 
is,  consequently,  a  very  masterful  authority  in  the 
House.  He  can  force  it  to  a  consideration  of  the 
business  of  his  Committea  at  almost  any  time  ; 
and  by  withholding  his  reports  until  the  session 
is  well  advanced  can  crowd  all  other  topics  from 
the  docket.  For  much  time  is  spent  over  each 
of  the  "  general  appropriation  bills."  The  spend- 
ing of  money  is  one  of  the  two  things  that  Con- 
gress invariably  stops  to  talk  about ;  the  other 
being  the  raising  of  money.  The  talk  is  made 
always  in  Committee  of  the  Whole,  into  which 
the  House  at  once  resolves  itself  whenever  ap- 
propriations are  to  be  considered.  While  mem- 
bers of  this,  which  may  be  called  the  House's 
Committee  of  Supply,  representatives  have  the 
freest  opportunity  of  the  session  for  activity,  for 
usefulness,  or  for  meddling,  outside  the  sphere  of 
their  own  committee  work.  It  is  true  that  the 
"  five-minutes'  rule  "  gives  each  speaker  in  Com- 
mittee of  the  Whole  scant  time  for  the  expres- 
sion of  his  views,  and  that  the  House  can  refuse 
to  accord  full  freedom  of  debate  to  its  other  self, 
the  Committee  of  the  Whole,  by  limiting  the 
time  which  it  is  to  devote  to  the  discussion  of 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       155 

matters  referred  to  it,  or  by  providing  for  its 
discharge  from  the  further  consideration  of  any 
bill  committed  to  it,  after  it  shall  have  acted 
without  debate  on  all  amendments  pending  or 
that  may  be  offered ;  but  as  a  rule  every  mem- 
ber has  a  chance  to  offer  what  suggestions  he 
pleases  upon  questions  of  appropriation,  and 
many  hours  are  spent  in  business-like  debate 
and  amendment  of  such  bills,  clause  by  clause 
and  item  by  item.  The  House  learns  pretty 
thoroughly  what  is  in  each  of  its  appropriation 
bills  before  it  sends  it  to  the  Senate. 

But,  unfortunately,  the  dealings  of  the  Senate 
with  money  bills  generally  render  worthless  the 
painstaking  action  of  the  House.  The  Senate 
has  been  established  by  precedent  in  the  very 
freest  possible  privileges  of  amendment  as  re- 
gards these  bills  no  less  than  as  regards  all 
others.  The  Constitution  is  silent  as  to  the 
origination  of  bills  appropriating  money.  It 
says  simply  that  "  all  bills  for  raising  revenue 
shall  originate  in  the  House  of  Representatives," 
and  that  in  considering  these  "  the  Senate  may 
propose  or  concur  with  amendments  as  on  other 
bills"  (Art.  I.,  Sec.  VII.)  ;  but,  "by  a  practice 
as  old  as  the  Government  itself,  the  constitu- 
tional prerogative  of  the  House  has  been  held  to 
apply  to  all  the  general  appropriation  bills,"' 

'  Senator  Hoar's  article,  already  several  times  quoted. 


156  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

and  the  Senate's  right  to  amend  these  has  been 
allowed  the  widest  conceivable  scope.  The  up- 
per house  may  add  to  them  what  it  pleases ; 
may  go  altogether  outside  of  their  original  pro- 
visions and  tack  to  them  entirely  new  features 
of  legislation,  altering  not  only  the  amounts  but 
even  the  objects  of  expenditure,  and  making  out 
of  the  materials  sent  them  by  the  popular  cham- 
ber measures  of  an  almost  totally  new  character. 
As  passed  by  the  House  of  Representatives, 
appropriation  bills  generally  provide  for  an  ex- 
penditure considerably  less  than  that  called  for 
by  the  estimates ;  as  returned  from  the  Senate, 
they  usually  propose  grants  of  many  additional 
millions,  having  been  brought  by  that  less  sensi- 
tive body  up  almost,  if  not  quite,  to  the  figures 
of  the  estimates. 

After  passing  their  ordeal  of  scrutiny  and 
amendment  in  the  Senate,  the  appropriation  bills 
return  with  their  new  figures  to  the  House.  But 
when  they  return  it  is  too  late  for  the  House  to 
put  them  again  into  the  crucible  of  Committee 
of  the  Whole.  The  session,  it  may  be  taken 
for  granted,  was  well  on  towards  its  middle  age 
before  they  were  originally  introduced  by  the 
House  Committee  on  Appropriations  ;  after  they 
reached  the  Senate  they  were  referred  to  its  cor- 
responding Committee ;  and  the  report  of  that 
Committee  upon  them  was  debated  at  the  lei« 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       157 

surely  length  characteristic  of  the  weightier  pro- 
ceedings of  the  upper  chamber  ;  so  that  the  last 
days  of  the  session  are  fast  approaching  when 
they  are  sent  down  to  the  House  with  the  work 
of  the  Senate's  hand  upon  them.  The  House  is 
naturally  disinclined  to  consent  to  the  radical 
alterations  wrought  by  the  Senate,  but  there  is 
no  time  to  quarrel  with  its  colleague,  unless  it 
can  make  up  its  mind  to  sit  through  the  heat  of 
midsummer,  or  to  throw  out  the  bill  and  accept 
the  discomforts  of  an  extra  session.  If  the  ses- 
sion be  the  short  one,  which  ends,  by  constitu- 
tional requirement,  on  the  4th  of  March,  the 
alternative  is  the  still  more  distasteful  one  of 
leaving  the  appropriations  to  be  made  by  the 
next  House. 

The  usual  practice,  therefore,  is  to  adjust 
such  differences  by  means  of  a  conference  be- 
tween the  two  Houses.  The  House  rejects  the 
Senate's  amendments  without  hearing  them 
read ;  the  Senate  stoutly  refuses  to  yield ;  a 
conference  ensues,  conducted  by  a  committee  of 
three  members  from  each  chamber ;  and  a  com- 
promise is  effected,  by  such  a  compounding  of 
disagreeing  propositions  as  gives  neither  party  to 
the  quarrel  the  victory,  and  commonly  leaves  the 
grants  not  a  little  below  the  amounts  asked  for 
by  the  departments.  As  a  rule,  the  Conference 
Committee  consists,  on  the  part  of  the  House,  of 


158  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

the  chairman  of  its  Committee  on  Appropriar 
tions,  some  other  well-posted  member  of  that  Com- 
mittee, and  a  representative  of  the  minority.  Its 
reports  are  matters  of  highest  prerogative.  They 
may  be  brought  in  even  while  a  member  is  speak- 
ing. It  is  much  better  to  silence  a  speaker  than 
to  delay  for  a  single  moment,  at  this  stage  of  the 
session,  the  pressing,  imperious  question  of  the 
supplies  for  the  support  of  the  government.  The 
report  is,  therefore,  acted  upon  immediately  and 
in  a  mass,  and  is  generally  adopted  without  de- 
bate. So  great  is  the  haste  that  the  report  is 
passed  upon  before  being  printed,  and  without 
giving  any  one  but  the  members  of  the  Con- 
ference Committee  time  to  understand  what  it 
really  contains.  There  is  no  chance  of  remark 
or  amendment.  It  receives  at  once  sanction  or 
rejection  as  a  whole ;  and  the  chances  are,  of 
course,  in  favor  of  its  being  accepted,  because 
to  reject  it  would  but  force  a  new  conference 
and  bring  fresh  delays. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  after  aU  the  care- 
ful and  thorough-going  debate  and  amendment 
of  Committee  of  the  Whole  in  the  House,  and 
all  the  grave  deliberation  of  the  Senate  to  which 
the  general  appropriations  are  subjected,  they 
finally  pass  in  a  very  chaotic  state,  full  of  pro- 
visions which  neither  the  House  nor  the  Senate 
likes,  and  utterly  vague   and  iminteUigible  to 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       159 

every  one  save  the  members  of  the  Conference 
Committee ;  so  that  it  would  seem  almost  as  if 
the  generous  portions  of  time  conscientiously 
given  to  their  consideration  in  their  earlier 
stages  had  been  simply  time  thrown  away. 

The  result  of  the  under-appropriation  to  which 
Congress  seems  to  have  become  addicted  by  long 
habit  in  dealing  with  the  estimates,  is,  of  course, 
the  addition  of  another  bill  to  the  nmnber  of  the 
regular  annual  grants.  As  regularly  as  the  an- 
nual session  opens  there  is  a  Deficiency  Bill  ta 
be  considered.  Doubtless  deficiencies  frequently 
arise  because  of  miscalculations  or  extravagance 
on  the  part  of  the  departments;  but  the  most 
serious  deficiencies  are  those  which  result  from 
the  close-fistedness  of  the  House  Committee  on 
Appropriations,  and  the  compromise  reductions 
which  are  wrung  from  the  Senate  by  conference 
committees.  Every  December,  consequently, 
along  with  the  estimates  for  the  next  fiscal  year, 
or  at  a  later  period  of  the  session  in  special  com- 
munications, come  estimates  of  deficiencies  in  the 
appropriations  for  the  current  year,  and  the  ap- 
parent economies  of  the  grants  of  the  preceding 
session  have  to  be  offset  in  the  gifts  of  the  inev- 
itable Deficiency  BiU.  It  is  as  if  Congress  had 
designedly  established  the  plan  of  making  semi- 
annual appropriations.  At  each  session  it  grants 
paxt  of  the  money  to  be  spent  after  the  first  of 


160  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

July  following,  and  such  sums  as  are  needed  to 
supplement  the  expenditures  previously  author- 
ized to  be  made  after  the  first  of  July  preceding. 
It  doles  out  their  allowances  in  installments  to 
its  wards,  the  departments. 

It  is  usual  for  the  Appropriations  Committees 
of  both  Houses,  when  preparing  the  annual  bills, 
to  take  the  testimony  of  the  directing  officers  of 
the  departments  as  to  the  actual  needs  of  the 
public  service  in  regard  to  all  the  principal  items 
of  expenditure.  Having  no  place  upon  the  floor 
of  the  House,  and  being,  in  consequence,  shut 
out  from  making  complete  public  statements 
concerning  the  estimates,  the  heads  of  the  sev- 
eral executive  departments  are  forced  to  confine 
themselves  to  private  communications  with  the 
House  and  Senate  Committees.  Appearing  be- 
fore those  Committees  in  person,  or  addressing 
them  more  formally  in  writing,  they  explain  and 
urge  the  appropriations  asked  in  the  "  Letter  " 
containing  the  estimates.  Their  written  com- 
munications, though  addressed  only  to  the  chair- 
man of  one  of  the  Committees,  frequently  reach 
Congress  itself,  being  read  in  open  session  by 
some  member  of  the  Committee  in  order  to  jus- 
tify or  interpret  the  items  of  appropriation  pro- 
posed in  a  pending  bill.  Not  infrequently  the 
head  of  a  department  exerts  himself  to  secure 
desired  supplies  by  dint  of  negotiation  with  in-i 


THE  BOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       161 

dividual  members  of  the  Committee,  and  by  re- 
peated and  insistent  private  appeals  to  their 
chairman. 

-Only  a  very  small  part  of  the  relations  be- 
tween the  Committees  and  the  departments  is  a 
matter  of  rule.  Each  time  that  the  estimates 
come  under  consideration  the  Committees  must 
specially  seek,  or  the  departments  newly  volun- 
teer, information  and  advice.  It  would  seem, 
however,  that  it  is  now  less  usual  for  the  Com- 
mittees to  ask  than  for  the  Secretaries  to  offer 
counsel  and  suggestion.  In  the  early  years  of 
the  government  it  was  apparently  not  uncom- 
mon for  the  chairman  of  spending  committees 
to  seek  out  departmental  officials  in  order  to  gfet 
necessary  enlightenment  concerning  the  mys- 
teries of  the  estimates,  though  it  was  often 
easier  to  ask  for  than  to  get  the  information 
wanted.  An  amusing  example  of  the  difficulties 
which  then  beset  a  committee-man  in  search  of 
such  knowledge  is  to  be  found  in  the  private 
correspondence  of  John  Randolph  of  Roanoke. 
Until  1865  the  House  Committee  of  Ways  and 
Means,  which  is  one  of  the  oldest  of  the  Stand- 
ing Committees,  had  charge  of  the  appropria- 
tions ;  it  was,  therefore,  Mr.  Randolph's  duty, 
as  chairman  of  that  Committee  in  1807,  to  look 
into  the  estimates,  and  he  thus  recounts,  in  an 
interesting  and  exceedingly  characteristic  letter 
11 


162  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

to  his  intimate  friend  and  correspondent,  Nich- 
olson, this  pitiful  experience  which  he  had  had 
in  performing  that  duty:  "I  called  some  time 
since  at  the  navy  office  to  ask  an  explanation  of 
certain  items  of  the  estimate  for  this  year.  The 
Secretary  called  upon  his  chief  clerk,  who  knew 
very  little  more  of  the  business  than  his  master. 
I  propounded  a  question  to  the  head  of  the  de- 
partment ;  he  turned  to  the  clerk  like  a  boy  who 
cannot  say  his  lesson,  and  with  imploring  coun- 
tenance beseeches  aid ;  the  clerk  with  much  as- 
surance gabbled  out  some  commonplace  jargon, 
which  I  could  not  take  for  sterling  ;  an  explana- 
tion was  required,  and  both  were  dumb.  This 
pantomime  was  repeated  at  every  item,  until,  dis- 
gusted and  ashamed  for  the  degraded  situation 
of  the  principal,  I  took  leave  without  pursuing 
the  subject,  seeing  that  my  object  could  not  be 
attained.  There  was  not  one  single  question 
relating  to  the  department  that  the  Secretary 
could  answer."  ^  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  Sec- 
retaries of  to-day  are  somewhat  better  versed  in 
the  affairs  of  their  departments  than  was  respect- 
able Robert  Smith,  or,  at  any  rate,  that  they 
have  chief  clerks  who  can  furnish  inquiring 
chairmen  with  something  better  than  common- 
place jargon  which  no  shrewd  man  can  take  for 

1  Adams's  John  Randolph.    American  Statesman  Seriet^ 
pp.  210,  211. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       163 

Su^arling  information  ;  and  it  is  altogether  prob- 
able that  such  a  scene  as  the  one  just  described 
would  nowadays  be  quite  impossible.  The  book- 
keeping of  later  years  has  been  very  much 
stricter  and  more  thorough  than  it  was  in  the 
infancy  of  the  departments  ;  the  estimates  are 
much  more  thoroughly  differentiated  and  item- 
ized ;  and  a  minute  division  of  labor  in  each 
department  amongst  a  numerous  clerical  force 
makes  it  comparatively  easy  for  the  chief  execu- 
tive officers  to  acquaint  themselves  quickly  and 
accurately  with  the  details  of  administration. 
They  do  not  wait,  therefore,  as  a  general  thing, 
to  be  sought  out  and  questioned  by  the  Commit- 
tees, but  bestir  themselves  to  get  at  the  ears  of 
the  committee-men,  and  especially  to  secure,  if 
possible,  the  influence  of  the  chairmen  in  the 
interest  of  adequate  appropriations. 

These  irregidar  and  generally  informal  com- 
munications between  the  Appropriations  Com- 
mittees and  the  heads  of  the  departments,  taking 
the  form  sometimes  of  pleas  privately  addressed 
by  the  Secretaries  to  individual  members  of 
the  Committees,  and  again  of  careful  letters 
which  find  their  way  into  the  reports  laid  be- 
fore Congress,  stand  in  our  system  in  the  place 
of  the  annual  financial  statements  which  are 
in  British  practice  made  by  the  ministers  to 
parliament,  under  circumstances  which  consti- 


164  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

tute  very  full  and  satisfactory  public  explana- 
tions and  the  freest  replies  to  all  pertinent  ques- 
tions invariable  features  of  the  supervision  of 
the  finances  by  the  Commons.  Our  ministers 
make  their  statements  to  both  Houses  indirectly 
and  piecemeal,  through  the  medium  of  the  Com- 
mittees. They  are  mere  witnesses,  and  are  in 
no  definite  way  responsible  for  the  annual  ap- 
propriations. Their  secure  four-year  tenure  of 
office  is  not  at  all  affected  by  the  treatment  the 
estimates  receive  at  the  hands  of  Congress.  To 
see  our  cabinet  officers  resign  because  appropria- 
tions had  been  refused  for  the  full  amount  asked 
for  in  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury's  "  Letter  " 
would  be  as  novel  in  our  eyes  as  would  be,  in  the 
view  of  our  English  cousins,  the  sight  of  a  Min- 
istry of  the  Crown  remaining  in  office  under 
similar  circumstances.  Indeed,  were  our  cabi- 
nets to  stake  their  positions  upon  the  fortunes 
of  the  estimates  submitted  to  Congress,  we 
should  probably  suffer  the  tiresome  inconven- 
ience of  yearly  resignations  ;  for  even  when  the 
heads  of  the  departments  tax  all  their  energies 
and  bring  into  requisition  all  their  arts  of  per- 
suasion to  secure  ample  grants  from  the  Com- 
mittees, the  House  Committee  cuts  down  the 
sums  as  usual,  the  Senate  Committee  adds  to 
them  as  before,  and  the  Conference  Committee 
strikes  a  deficient  compromise  balance  according 
to  time-honored  custom. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       165 

There  is  in  the  House  another  appropriations 
committee  besides  the  Committee  on  Appropria- 
tions. This  is  the  Committee  on  Rivers  and  Har- 
bors, created  in  December,  1883,  by  the  Forty- 
eighth  Congress,  as  a  sharer  in  the  too  great 
prerogatives  till  then  enjoyed  by  the  Committee 
on  Commerce.  The  Committee  on  Rivers  and 
Harbors  represents,  of  course,  the  lately-acquired 
permanency  of  the  policy  of  internal  improve- 
ments. Until  1870  that  policy  had  had  a  very 
precarious  existence.  Strenuously  denied  all 
tolerance  by  the  severely  constitutional  Presi- 
dents of  the  earlier  days,  it  could  not  venture  to 
declare  itself  openly  in  separate  appropriations 
which  offered  an  easy  prey  to  the  watchful  veto, 
but  skulked  in  the  imobtrusive  guise  of  items  of 
the  general  grants,  safe  under  the  cover  of  re- 
spectable neighbor  items.  The  veto  has  never 
been  allowed  to  seek  out  single  features  in  the 
acts  submitted  to  the  executive  eye,  and  even 
such  men  as  Madison  and  Monroe,  stiff  and 
peremptory  as  they  were  in  the  assertion  of  their 
conscientious  opinions,  and  in  the  performance 
of  what  they  conceived  to  be  their  constitutional 
duty,  and  much  as  they  disapproved  of  stretch- 
ing the  Constitution  to  such  uses  as  national  aid 
to  local  and  inland  improvements,  were  fain  to 
let  an  occasional  gift  of  money  for  such  purposes 
pass  unforbidden  rather  than  throw  out  the  geu' 


166  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

era!  appropriation  bill  to  which  it  was  tacked. 
Still,  Congress  did  not  make  very  frequent  or 
very  flagrant  use  of  this  trick,  and  schemes  of 
internal  improvement  came  altogether  to  a  stand- 
still when  faced  by  President  Jackson's  imperi- 
ous disfavor.  It  was  for  many  years  the  set- 
tled practice  of  Congress  to  grant  the  States 
upon  the  sea-board  leave  to  lay  duties  at  their 
ports  for  the  improvement  of  the  harbors,  and 
itself  to  xmdertake  the  expense  of  no  public 
works  save  those  upon  territory  actually  owned 
by  the  United  States.  But  in  later  years  the 
relaxation  of  presidential  opposition  and  the  ad- 
mission of  new  States  lying  altogether  away  from 
the  sea,  and,  therefore,  quite  unwilling  to  pay 
the  tariffs  which  were  building  up  the  harbors 
of  their  eastern  neighbors  without  any  recom- 
pensing advantage  to  themselves  who  had  no 
harbors,  revived  the  plans  which  the  vetoes  of 
former  times  had  rebuffed,  and  appropriations 
from  the  national  coffers  began  freely  to  be 
made  for  the  opening  of  the  great  water  high- 
ways and  the  perfecting  of  the  sea-gates  of  com- 
merce. The  inland  States  were  silenced,  because 
satisfied  by  a  share  in  the  benefits  of  national 
aid,  which,  being  no  longer  indirect,  was  not 
confined  to  the  sanctioning  of  state  tariffs  which 
none  but  the  sea-board  commonwealths  could 
benefit  by,  but  which  consumers  everywhere  had 
to  pay. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       167 

The  greatest  increase  in  appropriations  of  this 
class  took  place  just  after  1870.  Since  that  date 
they  have  occupied  a  very  prominent  place  in 
legislation,  running  from  some  twelve  millions 
in  the  session  of  1873-4  up  and  down  through 
various  figures  to  eighteen  millions  seven  hun- 
dred thousand  in  the  session  of  1882-3,  consti- 
tuting during  that  decade  the  chief  business  of 
the  Committee  on  Commerce,  and  finally  having 
a  special  Standing  Committee  erected  for  their 
superintendence.  They  have  thus  culminated 
with  the  culmination  of  the  protective  tariff, 
and  the  so-called  "  American  system  "  of  pro- 
tective tariffs  and  internal  improvements  has 
thus  at  last  attained  to  its  perfect  work.  The 
same  prerogatives  are  accorded  this  new  appro- 
priations committee  which  have  been  secured  to 
the  greater  Committee  which  deals  with  the  es- 
timates. Its  reports  may  be  made  at  any  time 
when  a  member  is  not  speaking,  and  stand  in  all 
respects  upon  the  same  footing  as  the  bills  pro- 
posing the  annual  grants.  It  is  a  special  spend- 
ing committee,  with  its  own  key  to  the  Treasury. 

But  the  Appropriation  Committees  of  the  two 
Houses,  though,  strictly  speaking,  the  only  com- 
mittees of  supply,  have  their  work  increased 
and  supplemented  by  the  numerous  Committees 
which  devote  time  and  energy  to  creating  de- 
mands upon  the  Treasury.     There  is  a  pension 


168  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

list  in  the  estimates  for  whose  payment  the  Com- 
mittee on  Appropriations  has  to  provide  every 
year ;  but  the  Committee  on  Pensions  is  con- 
stantly manufacturing  new  claims  upon  the  pub- 
lic revenues.^  There  must  be  money  forthcoming 
to  build  the  new  ships  called  for  by  the  report 
of  the  Committee  on  Naval  Affairs,  and  to  meet 
the  charges  for  the  army  equipment  and  reforms 
recommended  by  the  Committee  on  Military 
Affairs.  There  are  innumerable  fingers  in  the 
budget  pie. 

It  is  principally  in  connection  with  appropri- 
ations that  what  has  come  to  be  known  in  our 
political  slang  as  "  log-rolling  "  takes  place.  Of 
course  the  chief  scene  of  this  sport  is  the  private 
room  of  the  Committee  on  Rivers  and  Harbors, 
and  the  season  of  its  highest  excitement,  the 
hours  spent  in  the  passage  of  the  River  and  Har- 

1  On  one  occasion  "  the  House  passed  thirty-seven  pension 
bills  at  one  sitting.  The  Senate,  on  its  part,  by  unanimous 
consent,  took  np  and  passed  in  about  ten  minutes  seven  bills 
providing  for  public  buildings  in  different  States,  appropriat- 
ing an  aggregate  of  $1,200,000  in  this  short  time.  A  recent 
House  feat  was  one  in  which  a  bill,  allowing  1 ,300  war  claims 
in  a  lump,  was  passed.  It  contained  one  hundred  and  nineteen 
pages  full  of  little  claims,  amounting  in  all  to  $291,000;  and 
a  member,  in  deprecating  criticism  on  this  disposition  of  them, 
said  that  the  Committee  had  received  ten  huge  bags  full  of 
such  claims,  which  had  been  adjudicated  by  the  Treasury  oflB- 
cials,  and  it  was  a  physical  impossibility  to  examine  them."  — 
N.  Y.  Sun,  1881. 


THE  HOUSE   OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       169 

bor  Bill.  "Log-rolling"  is  an  exchange  of 
favors.  Representative  A.  is  very  anxious  to 
secure  a  grant  for  the  clearing  of  a  small  water- 
course in  his  district,  and  representative  B.  i? 
equally  solicitous  about  his  plans  for  bringing 
money  into  the  hands  of  the  contractors  of  his 
own  constituency,  whilst  representative  C.  comes 
from  a  sea-port  town  whose  modest  harbor  is 
neglected  because  of  the  treacherous  bar  across 
its  mouth,  and  representative  D.  has  been  blamed 
for  not  bestirring  himself  more  in  the  interest  of 
schemes  of  improvement  afoot  amongst  the  en- 
terprising citizens  of  his  native  place ;  so  it  is 
perfectly  feasible  for  these  gentlemen  to  put 
their  heads  together  and  confirm  a  mutual  un- 
derstanding that  each  will  vote  in  Committee  of 
the  Whole  for  the  grants  desired  by  the  others, 
in  consideration  of  the  promise  that  they  will 
cry  "  aye  "  when  his  item  comes  on  to  be  consid- 
ered. It  is  not  out  of  the  question  to  gain  the 
favoring  ear  of  the  reporting  Committee,  and  a 
great  deal  of  tinkering  can  be  done  with  the  bill 
after  it  has  come  into  the  hands  of  the  House. 
Lobbying  and  log-rolling  go  hand  in  hand. 

So  much  for  estimates  and  appropriations. 
All  questions  of  revenue  are  in  their  first  stages 
in  the  hands  of  the  House  Committee  of  Ways 
and  Means;  and  in  their  last,  in  charge  of  the 
Senate  Committee  on  Finance.     The  name  of 


170  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

the  House  Committee  is  evidently  borrowed 
from  the  language  of  the  British  Parliament ; 
the  English,  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  is, 
however,  the  Commons  itself  sitting  in  Commit- 
tee of  the  Whole  to  consider  the  statement  and 
proposals  of  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
whilst  ours  is  a  Standing  Committee  of  the 
House  composed  of  eleven  members,  and  charged 
with  the  preparation  of  all  legislation  relating  to 
the  raising  of  the  revenue  and  to  providing  ways 
and  means  for  the  support  of  the  government. 
We  have,  in  English  parliamentary  phrase,  put 
our  Chancellorship  of  the  Exchequer  into  com- 
mission. The  chairman  of  the  Committee  fig- 
ures as  our  minister  of  finance,  but  he  really,  of 
course,  only  represents  the  commission  of  eleven 
over  which  he  presides. 

All  reports  of  the  Treasury  department  are 
referred  to  this  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means, 
which  also,  like  the  Committee  on  Appropria- 
tions, from  time  to  time  holds  other  more  direct 
communications  with  the  officers  of  revenue  bu- 
reaux. The  annual  reports  of  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  are  generally  quite  full  of  minute 
information  upon  the  points  most  immediately 
connected  with  the  proper  duties  of  the  Commit- 
tee. They  are  explicit  with  regard  to  the  collec- 
tion and  disbursement  of  the  revenues,  with  re- 
gard to  the  condition  of  the  public  debt,  and 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.      171 

with  regard  to  the  operation  of  all  laws  govern- 
ing the  financial  policy  of  the  departments. 
They  are,  in  one  aspect,  the  great  yearly  balance 
I  sheets,  exhibiting  the  receipts  and  expenditures 
of  the  government,  its  liabilities  and  its  credits ; 
and,  in  another  aspect,  general  views  of  the  state 
of  industry  and  of  the  financial  machinery  of  the 
country,  summarizing  the  information  compiled 
by  the  bureau  of  statistics  with  reference  to  the 
condition  of  the  manufactures  and  of  domestic 
trade,  as  well  as  with  regard  to  the  plight  of  the 
currency  and  of  the  national  banks.  They  are, 
of  course,  quite  distinct  from  the  "  Letters  "  of 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  which  contain  the 
estimates,  and  go,  not  to  the  Committee  of  Ways 
and  Means,  but  to  the  Committee  on  Appropri- 
ations. 

Though  the  duties  of  the  Committee  of  Ways 
and  Means  in  supervising  the  management  of 
the  revenues  of  the  country  are  quite  closely 
analogous  to  those  of  the  British  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer,  the  lines  of  policy  in  which  they 
walk  are  very  widely  separated  from  those  which 
he  feels  bound  to  follow.  As  I  have  said,  the 
object  which  he  holds  constantly  in  view  is  to 
keep  the  annual  balances  as  nearly  as  possible 
at  an  equilibrium.  He  plans  to  raise  only  just 
enough  revenue  to  satisfy  the  grants  made  in 
Committee  of  Supply,  and  leave  a  modest  sur- 


172  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

plus  to  cover  possible  errors  in  the  estimates  and 
probable  fluctuations  in  the  returns  from  taxa- 
tion. Our  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means, 
on  the  other  hand,  follow  a  very  different  policy. 
The  revenues  which  they  control  are  raised  for 
a  double  object.  They  represent  not  only  the 
income  of  the  government,  but  also  a  carefidly 
erected  commercial  policy  to  which  the  income 
of  the  government  has  for  many  years  been  in- 
cidental. They  are  intended  to  foster  the  man- 
ufactures of  the  country  as  well  as  to  defray  the 
expenses  of  federal  administration.  Were  the 
maintenance  of  the  government  and  the  support 
of  the  public  credit  the  chief  objects  of  our  na- 
tional policy  of  taxation,  it  would  undoubtedly 
be  cast  in  a  very  different  pattern.  During  a 
greater  part  of  the  lifetime  of  the  present  gov- 
ernment, the  principal  feature  of  that  policy  has 
been  a  complex  system  of  duties  on  imports, 
troublesome  and  expensive  of  collection,  but 
nevertheless  yielding,  together  with  the  license 
taxes  of  the  internal  revenue  which  later  years 
have  seen  added  to  it,  immense  surpluses  which 
no  extravagances  of  the  spending  committees 
could  exhaust.  Duties  few,  small,  and  compar- 
atively inexpensive  of  collection  woidd  afford 
abundant  revenues  for  the  efficient  conduct  of 
the  government,  besides  comporting  much  more 
evidently  with  economy  in  financial  administra< 


THE 'BOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       173 

tion.  Of  course,  if  vast  revenues  pour  in  over 
the  barriers  of  an  exacting  and  exorbitant  tariff, 
amply  sufficient  revenues  would  flow  in  through 
the  easy  conduits  of  moderate  and  simple  duties. 
The  object  of  our  financial  policy,  however,  has 
not  been  to  equalize  receipts  and  expenditures, 
but  to  foster  the  industries  of  the  country.  The 
Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  therefore,  do  not 
concern  themselves  directly  with  regulating  the 
income  of  the  government  —  they  know  that 
that,  in  every  probable  event,  will  be  more  than 
sufficient  —  but  with  protecting  the  interests  of 
the  manufacturers  as  affected  by  the  regulation 
of  the  tariff.  The  resources  of  the  government 
are  made  incidental  to  the  industrial  investments 
of  private  citizens. 

This  evidently  constitutes  a  very  capital  dif- 
ference between  the  functions  of  the  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer  and  those  of  our  Committee  of 
Ways  and  Means.  In  the  policy  of  the  former 
the  support  of  the  government  is  everything ; 
with  the  latter  the  care  of  the  industries  of  the 
country  is  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  duty. 
In  the  eyes  of  parliament  enormous  balances  rep- 
resent ignorant  or  improper  management  on  the 
part  of  the  ministers,  and  a  succession  of  them 
is  sure  to  cast  a  cabinet  from  office,  to  the  last- 
ing disgrace  of  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer ; 
but  to  the  mind  of  Congress  vast  surpluses  are 


174  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

indicative  of  nothing  in  particular.  They  indi- 
cate of  course  abundant  returns  from  the  duties, 
but  the  chief  concern  is,  not  whether  the  duties 
are  fruitful,  but  whether  they  render  the  trades 
prosperous.  Commercial  interests  are  the  essen- 
tial consideration  ;  excess  of  income  is  a  matter 
of  comparative  indifference.  The  points  of  view 
characteristic  of  the  two  systems  are  thus  quite 
opposite :  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means 
subordinates  its  housekeeping  duties  to  its  much 
wider  extra  -  governmental  business ;  the  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer  subordinates  everything 
to  economical  administration. 

This  is  evidently  the  meaning  of  the  easy  sov- 
ereignty, in  the  practice  of  the  House,  of  ques- 
tions of  supply  over  questions  of  revenue.  It  is 
imperative  to  grant  money  for  the  support  of  the 
government,  but  questions  of  revenue  revision 
may  be  postponed  without  inconvenience.  The 
two  things  do  not  necessarily  go  hand  in  hand, 
as  they  do  in  the  Commons.  The  reports  of  the 
Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  are  matters  of 
quite  as  high  privilege  as  the  reports  of  the 
Committee  on  Appropriations,  but  tjiey  by  no 
means  stand  an  equal  chance  of  gaining  the  con- 
sideration of  the  House  and  reaching  a  passage. 
They  have  no  inseparable  connection  with  the 
annual  grants  ;  the  needed  supplies  will  be  forth- 
coming without  any  readjustments  of  taxation 


THE  HOUSE  OF  SEPREsENTATIVES.       175 

to  meet  the  anticipated  demands,  because  the 
taxes  are  not  laid  in  the  first  instance  with  ref- 
erence to  the  expenses  which  are  to  be  paid  out 
of  their  proceeds.  If  it  were  the  function  of  the 
Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  as  it  is  of  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  to  adjust  the  rev- 
enue to  the  expenditures,  their  reports  would  be 
as  essential  a  part  of  the  business  of  each  session 
as  are  the  reports  of  the  Committee  on  Appro- 
priations ;  but  their  proposals,  occupying,  as 
they  do,  a  very  different  place  in  legislation, 
may  go  to  the  wall  just  as  the  proposals  of  the 
other  Committees  do  at  the  demand  of  the  chair- 
man of  the  great  spending  Committee.  The  fig- 
ures of  the  annual  grants  do  not  run  near  enough 
to  the  sum  of  the  annual  receipts  to  make  them 
at  all  dependent  on  bills  which  concern  the 
latter. 

It  would  seem  that  the  supervision  exercised 
by  Congress  over  expenditures  is  more  thorough 
than  that  which  is  exercised  by  the  Commons  in 
England.  Jn  1814  the  House  created  a  Stand- 
ing Committee  on  Public  Expenditures  whose 
duty  it  should  be  "  to  examine  into  the  state  of 
the  several  public  departments,  and  particularly 
into  laws  making  appropriations  of  money,  and 
to  report  whether  the  moneys  have  been  dis- 
bursed conformably  with  such  laws  ;  and  also  to 
report  from  time  to  time  such  provisions  and  ar- 


176  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

rangements  as  may  be  necessary  to  add  to  the 
economy  of  the  departments  and  the  accounta- 
bility of  their  officers ;  "  but  this  Committee 
stood  as  the  only  committee  of  audit  for  but  two 
years.  It  was  not  then  abolished,  but  its  juris- 
diction was  divided  amongst  six  other  Commit- 
tees on  Expenditures  in  the  several  departments, 
to  which  was  added  in  1860  a  seventh,  and  in 
1874  an  eighth.  There  is  thus  a  separate  Com- 
mittee for  the  audit  of  the  accounts  of  each  of 
the  executive  departments,  beside  which  the  orig- 
inal single  Committee  on  Public  Expenditures 
stands  charged  with  such  duties  as  may  have 
been  left  it  in  the  general  distribution.^  The 
duties  of  these  eight  Committees  are  specified 
with  great  minuteness  in  the  rules.  They  are 
"  to  examine  into  the  state  of  the  accounts  and 
expenditures  respectively  submitted  to  them,  and 

1  Congress,  though  constantly  erecting  new  Committees, 
never  gives  up  old  ones,  no  matter  how  useless  they  may  have 
become  by  subtraction  of  duties.  Thus  there  is  not  only  the 
superseded  Committee  on  Public  Expenditures  but  the  Com- 
mittee on  Manufactures  also,  which,  when  a  part  of  the  one- 
time Committee  on  Commerce  and  Manufactures,  had  plenty 
to  do,  but  which,  since  the  creation  of  a  distinct  Committee  on 
Commerce,  has  had  nothing  to  do,  having  now,  together  with 
the  Committees  on  Agriculture  and  Indian  Affairs,  no  duties 
assigned  to  it  by  the  rules.  It  remains  to  be  seen  whether  the 
Committee  on  Commerce  will  suffer  a  like  eclipse  because  of 
the  gift  of  its  principal  duties  to  the  new  Committee  on  Rivers 
and  Harbors. 


THE  HOUSE   OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       177 

to  inquire  and  report  particularly,"  whether  the 
expenditures  of  the  respective  departments  are 
warranted  by  law ;  "  whether  the  claims  from 
time  to  time  satisfied  and  discharged  by  the  re- 
spective departments  are  supported  by  sufficient 
vouchers,  establishing  their  justness  both  as  to 
their  character  and  amount ;  whether  such  claims 
have  been  discharged  out  of  funds  appropriated 
therefor,  and  whether  all  moneys  have  been  dis- 
bursed in  conformity  with  appropriation  laws ; 
and  whether  any,  or  what,  provisions  are  neces- 
sary to  be  adopted,  to  provide  more  perfectly  for 
the  proper  application  of  the  public  moneys,  and 
to  secure  the  government  from  demands  unjust  in 
their  character  or  extravagant  in  their  amount." 
Besides  exercising  these  functions  of  careful  au- 
dit, they  are,  moreover,  required  to  "  report 
from  time  to  time  "  any  plans  for  retrenchment 
that  may  appear  advisable  in  the  interests  of 
economy,  or  any  measures  that  may  be  necessary 
to  secure  greater  efficiency  or  to  insure  stricter 
accountability  to  Congress  in  the  management 
of  the  departments  ;  to  ferret  out  all  abuses  that 
may  make  their  appearance ;  and  to  see  to  it 
that  no  department  has  useless  offices  in  its  bu- 
reaux, or  over  or  under-paid  officers  on  its  rolls. 
But,  though  these  Committees  are  so  many 
and  so  completely  armed  with  powers,  indica- 
tions are  not  wanting  that  more  abuses  run  at 
12 


178  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

large  in  the  departments  than  they,  with  all  their 
eyes,  are  able  to  detect.  The  Senate,  though  it 
has  no  similar  permanent  committees,  has  some- 
times discovered  dishonest  dealings  that  had  al- 
together escaped  the  vigilance  of  the  eight  House 
Committees ;  and  even  these  eight  occasionally, 
by  a  special  effort,  bring  to  light  transactions 
which  would  never  have  been  unearthed  in  the 
ordinary  routine  course  of  their  usual  procedure. 
It  was  a  select  committee  of  the  Senate  which, 
during  the  sessions  of  the  Forty-seventh  Con- 
gress, discovered  that  the  "  contingent  fund  "  of 
the  Treasury  department  had  been  spent  in  re- 
pairs on  the  Secretary's  private  residence,  for 
expensive  suppers  spread  before  the  Secretary's 
political  friends,  for  lemonade  for  the  delectation 
of  the  Secretary's  private  palate,  for  bouquets  for 
the  gratification  of  the  Secretary's  busiest  allies, 
for  carpets  never  delivered,  "  ice  "  never  used,  and 
services  never  rendered  ;  ^  although  these  were 
secrets  of  which  the  honest  faces  of  the  vouchers 
submitted  with  the  accounts  gave  not  a  hint. 
It  is  hard  to  see  how  there  could  have  been 

1  See  the  report  of  this  Committee,  which  was  under  the 
chairmanship  of  Senator  Windom. 

An  illustration  of  what  the  House  Committees  find  by  spe- 
cial effort  may  be  seen  in  the  revelations  of  the  investigation 
of  the  expenses  of  the  notorious  "  Star  Route  Trials  "  mac^e 
by  the  Forty-eighth  Congress's  Committee  on  Expenditures  in 
the  department  of  Justice. 


THE  HOUSE   OF  REPRESENTATIVES.      179 

anything  satisfactory  or  conclusive  in  the  annual 
supervision  of  the  public  accounts  during  any 
but  the  latest  years  of  this  system  of  committee 
audit.  Before  1870  our  national  book-keeping 
was  much  like  that  still  in  vogue  in  France. 
Credits  once  granted  ran  on  without  period  until 
they  were  exhausted.  There  were  always  unex- 
pended balances  to  confuse  the  accounts  ;  and 
when  the  figures  of  the  original  grants  had  been 
on  a  too  generous  scale,  as  was  often  the  case, 
these  balances  accumulated  from  year  to  year 
in  immense  surpluses,  sometimes  of  many  mil- 
lions, of  whose  use  no  account  was  given,  and 
which  consequently  afforded  means  for  all  sorts 
of  extravagance  and  peculation.  In  1870  this 
abuse  was  partially  corrected  by  a  law  which 
limited  such  accumulations  to  a  period  of  two 
years,  and  laid  hands,  on  behalf  of  the  Treasury, 
on  the  $174,000,000  of  unexpended  balances 
which  had  by  that  time  been  amassed  in  the  sev- 
eral departments  ;  but  it  was  not  till  1874  that 
such  a  rule  of  expenditure  and  accounting  was 
established  as  would  make  intelligent  audit  by 
the  Committees  possible,  by  a  proper  circum- 
sciiption  of  the  time  during  which  credits  could 
be  drawn  upon  without  a  regrant.^ 

Such  is  a  general  view,  in  brief  and  without 

1  S«e  General  Garfield's  article,  already  once  qaoted,  North 
American  Review,  vol.  cxxvili.  p,  533. 


180  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

technical  detail,  of  the  chief  features  of  our 
financial  system,  of  the  dealings  of  Congress 
with  the  questions  of  revenue,  expenditure,  and 
supply.  The  contrast  which  this  system  offers 
to  the  old-world  systems,  of  which  the  British 
is  the  most  advanced  type,  is  obviously  a  very 
striking  one.  The  one  is  the  very  opposite  of 
the  others.  On  the  one  hand  is  a  financial  pol- 
icy regulated  by  a  compact,  cooperative  ministry 
imder  the  direction  of  a  representative  chamber, 
and  on  the  other  hand  a  financial  policy  di- 
rected by  the  representative  body  itself,  with 
only  clerical  aid  from  the  executive.  In  our 
practice,  in  other  words,  the  Committees  are  the 
ministers,  and  the  titular  ministers  only  confi- 
dential clerks.  There  is  no  concurrence,  not 
even  a  nominal  alliance,  between  the  several  sec- 
tions of  this  committee-ministry,  though  their 
several  duties  are  clearly  very  nearly  akin  and 
as  clearly  mutually  dependent.  This  feature  of 
disintegration  in  leadership  runs,  as  I  have  al- 
ready pointed  out,  through  all  our  legislation  ; 
but  it  is  manifestly  of  much  more  serious  conse- 
quence in  financial  administration  than  in  the  di- 
rection of  other  concerns  of  government.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that,  if  it  were  not  for  the  fact 
that  our  revenues  are  not  regulated  with  any 
immediate  reference  to  the  expenditures  of  the 
government,  this  method  of  spending  according 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       181 

to  the  suggestions  of  one  body,  and  taxing  in 
obedience  to  the  suggestions  of  another  entirely 
distinct,  would  very  quickly  bring  us  into  dis- 
tress ;  it  would  unquestionably  break  down  under 
any  attempt  to  treat  revenue  and  expenditure  as 
mutually  adjustable  parts  of  a  single,  uniform, 
self-consistent  system.  They  can  be  so  treated 
only  when  they  are  under  the  management  of  a 
single  body ;  only  when  all  financial  arrange- 
ments are  based  upon  schemes  prepared  by  a  few 
men  of  trained  minds  and  accordant  principles, 
who  can  act  with  easy  agreement  and  with  per- 
fect confidence  in  each  other.  When  taxation 
is  regarded  only  as  a  source  of  revenue  and  the 
chief  object  of  financial  management  is  the  grad- 
uation of  outlays  by  income,  the  credit  and  debit 
sides  of  the  account  must  come  under  a  single 
eye  to  be  properly  balanced  ;  or,  at  the  least, 
those  officers  who  raise  the  money  must  see  and 
be  guided  by  the  books  of  those  who  spend  it. 

It  cannot,  therefore,  be  reasonably  regarded 
as  matter  of  surprise  that  our  financial  policy 
has  been  without  consistency  or  coherency,  with- 
out progressive  continuity.  The  only  evidences 
of  design  to  be  discovered  in  it  appear  in  those 
few  elementary  features  which  were  impressed 
upon  it  in  the  first  days  of  the  government,  when 
Congress  depended  upon  such  men  as  Hamil- 
ton and  Gallatin  for  guidance  in  putting  the 


182  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

financeB  into  shape.  As  far  as  it  has  any  invari- 
able characteristics,  or  any  traceable  heredity,  it 
is  the  handiwork  of  the  sagacious  men  who  first 
presided  over  the  Treasury  department.  Since 
it  has  been  altogether  in  the  hands  of  congres- 
sional Committees  it  has  so  waywardly  shifted 
from  one  rSle  to  another,  and  has  with  such  er- 
ratic facility  changed  its  principles  of  action  and 
its  modes  of  speech,  to  suit  the  temper  and  tastes 
of  the  times,  that  one  who  studies  it  hardly  be- 
comes acquainted  with  it  in  one  decade  before 
he  finds  that  that  was  a  season  quite  apart  from 
and  unlike  both  those  which  went  before  and 
those  which  succeeded.  At  almost  every  session 
Congress  has  made  some  effort,  more  or  less  de- 
termined, towards  changing  the  revenue  system 
in  some  essential  portion ;  and  that  system  has 
never  escaped  radical  alteration  for  ten  years 
together.  Had  revenue  been  graduated  by  the 
comparatively  steady  standard  of  the  expendi- 
tures, it  must  have  been  kept  stable  and  calcu- 
lable ;  but  depending,  as  it  has  done,  on  a 
much-debated  and  constantly  fluctuating  indus- 
trial policy,  it  has  been  regulated  in  accordance 
with  a  scheme  which  has  passed  through  as  many 
phases  as  there  have  been  vicissitudes  and  vaga- 
ries in  the  fortunes  of  commerce  and  the  tactics 
of  parties. 

This  is  the   more  remarkable   because   upon 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       183 

all  fiscal  questions  Congress  acts  with  considera- 
ble deliberation  and  care.  Financial  legislation 
usually,  if  not  always,,  occupies  by  far  the  most 
prominent  place  in  the  business  of  each  session. 
Though  other  questions  are  often  disposed  of 
at  odd  moments,  in  haste  and  without  thought, 
questions  of  revenue  and  supply  are  always 
given  full  measure  of  debate.  The  House  of 
Representatives,  under  authority  of  the  Rule  be- 
fore referred  to,  which  enables  it,  as  it  were, 
to  project  the  previous  question  into  Committee 
of  the  Whole,  by  providing  for  the  discharge  of 
that  Committee  from  the  further  •  consideration 
of  any  bill  that  is  in  its  hands,  or  that  may  be 
about  to  be  referred  to  it,  after  all  amendments 
"  pending  and  that  may  be  offered  "  shall  have 
been  acted  upon  without  debate,  seldom  hesi- 
tates, when  any  ordinary  business  is  to  be  con- 
sidered, to  forbid  to  the  proceedings  of  Commit- 
tee of  the  Whole  all  freedom  of  discussion,  and, 
consequently,  almost  all  discretion  as  to  the  ac- 
tion to  be  taken  ;  but  this  muzzle  is  seldom  put 
upon  the  mouth  of  the  Committee  when  appro- 
priation or  tariff  bills  are  to  be  considered,  un- 
less the  discussion  in  Committee  wanders  off  into 
fields,  quite  apart  from  the  proper  matter  of  the 
measure  in  hand,  in  which  case  the  House  inter- 
poses to  check  the  irrelevant  talk.  Appropria- 
tion bills  have,  however,  as  I  have   shown,  a 


184  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

much  higher  privilege  than  have  bills  affecting 
the  tariff,  and  instances  are  not  wanting  in  which 
the  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Appropria- 
tions has  managed  to  engross  the  time  of  the 
House  in  the  disposal  of  measures  prepared  by 
his  Committee,  to  the  entire  exclusion  of  any  ac- 
tion whatever  on  important  bills  reported  by  the 
Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  after  the  most 
careful  and  laborious  deliberation.  His  prerog- 
atives are  never  disputed  in  such  a  contest  for 
consideration  between  a  supply  and  a  revenue 
bill,  because  these  two  subjects  do  not,  under 
our  system,  necessarily  go  hand  in  hand.  Ways 
and  Means  bills  may  and  should  be  acted  upon, 
but  Supply  bills  must  be. 

It  should  be  remarked  in  this  connection, 
moreover,  that  much  as  Congress  talks  about 
fiscal  questions,  whenever  permitted  to  do  so  by 
the  selfish  Appropriations  Committee,  its  talk  is 
very  little  heeded  by  the  big  world  outside  its 
haUs.  The  noteworthy  fact,  to  which  I  have  al- 
ready called  attention,  that  even  the  most  thor- 
ough debates  in  Congress  fail  to  awaken  any 
genuine  or  active  interest  in  the  minds  of  the 
people,  has  had  its  most  striking  illustrations 
in  the  course  of  our  financial  legislation ;  for, 
though  the  discussions  which  have  taken  place 
in  Congress  upon  financial  questions  have  been 
BO  frequent,   so  protracted,   and   so   thorough, 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       185 

engrossing  so  large  a  part  of  the  time  of  the 
House  on  their  every  recurrence,  they  seem,  in 
ahnost  every  instance,  to  have  made  scarcely  any 
impression  at  all  upon  the  public  mind.  The 
Coinage  Act  of  1873,  by  which  silver  was  demon- 
etized, had  been  before  the  country  many  years, 
ere  it  reached  adoption,  having  been  time  and 
again  considered  by  Committees  of  Congress,  time 
and  again  printed  and  discussed  in  one  shape  or 
another,  and  having  finally  gained  acceptance 
apparently  by  sheer  persistence  and  importunity. 
The  Resumption  Act  of  1875,  too,  had  had  a  like 
career  of  repeated  considerations  by  Committees, 
repeated  printings,  and  a  full  discussion  by  Con- 
gress ;  and  yet  when  the  "  Bland  Silver  Bill "  of 
1878  was  on  its  way  through  the  mills  of  legis- 
lation, some  of  the  most  prominent  newspapers 
of  the  country  declared  with  confidence  that  the 
Resumption  Act  had  been  passed  inconsiderately 
and  in  haste,  almost  secretly  indeed ;  and  sev- 
eral members  of  Congress  had  previously  com- 
plained that  the  demonetization  scheme  of  1873 
had  been  pushed  surreptitiously  through  the 
courses  of  its  passage,  Congress  having  been 
tricked  into  accepting  it,  doing  it  scarcely  knew 
what. 

This  indifference  of  the  country  to  what  is 
said  in  Congress,  pointing,  as  it  obviously  does, 
to  the  fact  that,  though  th(%  Committees  lead  in 


186  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

legislation,  they  lead  without  concert  or  respon- 
sibility, and  lead  nobody  in  particular,  that  is,  no 
compact  and  organized  party  force  which  can  be 
made  accountable  for  its  policy,  has  also  a  fur- 
ther significance  with  regard  to  the  opportunities 
and  capacities  of  the  constituencies.  The  doubt 
and  confusion  of  thought  which  must  necessarily 
exist  in  the  minds  of  the  vast  majority  of  voters 
as  to  the  best  way  of  exerting  their  will  in  influ- 
encing the  action  of  an  assembly  whose  organi- 
zation is  so  complex,  whose  acts  are  apparently  so 
haphazard,  and  in  which  responsibility  is  spread 
so  thin,  throws  constituencies  into  the  hands  of 
local  politicians  who  are  more  visible  and  tangi- 
ble than  are  the  leaders  of  Congress,  and  gener- 
ates, the  while,  a  profound  distrust  of  Congress 
as  a  body  whose  actions  cannot  be  reckoned  be- 
forehand by  any  standard  of  promises  made  at 
elections  or  any  programmes  announced  by  con- 
ventions. Constituencies  can  watch  and  under- 
stand a  few  banded  leaders  who  display  plain 
purposes  and  act  upon  them  with  promptness ; 
but  they  cannot  watch  or  understand  forty  odd 
Standing  Committees,  each  of  which  goes  its  own 
way  in  doing  what  it  can  without  any  special 
regard  to  the  pledges  of  either  of  the  parties 
from  which  its  membership  is  drawn.  In  short, 
we  lack  in  our  political  life  the  conditions  most 
essential  for  the  formation  of  an  active  and  ei^oc 


THE  HOUSE   OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       187 

tive  public  opinion.  "The  characteristics  of  a 
nation  capable  of  public  opinion,"  says  Mr. 
Bagehot,  most  sagacious  of  political  critics,  "  is 
that  .  .  .  parties  will  be  organized ;  in  each 
there  will  be  a  leader,  in  each  there  will  be 
some  looked  up  to,  and  many  who  look  up  to 
them  ;  the  opinion  of  the  party  will  be  formed 
and  suggested  by  the  few,  it  will  be  criticised 
and  accepted  by  the  many."  ^  And  this  is  just 
the  sort  of  party  organization  which  we  have  not. 
Our  parties  have  titular  leaders  at  the  polls  in 
the  persons  of  candidates,  and  nominal  creeds  in 
the  resolutions  of  conventions,  but  no  select  few 
in  whom  to  trust  for  guidance  in  the  general 
policy  of  legislation,  or  to  whom  to  look  for  sug- 
gestions of  opinion.  What  man,  what  group  of 
men,  can  speak  for  the  Republican  party  or  for 
the  Democratic  party?  When  our  most  con- 
spicuous and  influential  politicians  say  anything 
about  future  legislation,  no  one  supposes  that 
they  are  speaking  for  their  party,  as  those  who 
have  authority ;  they  are  known  to  speak  only 
for  themselves  and  their  small  immediate  fol- 
lowing of  colleagues  and  friends. 

The  present  relations  between  Congress  and 

public  opinion  remind  us  of  that  time,  in  the 

reign  of   George  III.,  when   "  the  bulk  of   the 

English  people  found   itself   powerless   to  con* 

1  Essays  on  Parliamentary  Rsform. 


188  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

trol  the  course  of  English  government,"  when 
the  government  was  divorced  from  "  that  general 
mass  of  national  sentiment  on  which  a  govern- 
ment can  alone  safely  ground  itself."  Then  it 
was  that  English  public  opinion,  "  robbed  as  it 
was  of  aU  practical  power,  and  thus  stripped 
of  the  feeling  of  responsibility  which  the  con- 
sciousness of  power  carries  with  it,"  "became 
ignorant  and  indifferent  to  the  general  progress 
of  the  age,  but  at  the  same  time  .  .  .  hostile  to 
Government  because  it  was  Government,  disloyal 
to  the  Crown,  averse  from  Parliament.  For  the 
first  and  last  time  .  .  .  Parliament  was  unpop- 
ular, and  its  opponents  secure  of  popularity."  ^ 
Congress  has  in  our  own  day  become  divorced 
from  the  "  general  mass  of  national  sentiment," 
simply  because  there  is  no  means  by  which  the 
movements  of  that  national  sentiment  can  read- 
ily be  registered  in  legislation.  Going  about  as 
it  does  to  please  all  sorts  of  Committees  composed 
of  all  sorts  of  men, —  the  dull  and  the  acute,  the 
able  and  the  cunning,  the  honest  and  the  care- 
less, —  Congress  evades  judgment  by  avoiding 
all  coherency  of  plan  in  its  action.  The  constit- 
uencies can  hardly  tell  whether  the  works  of  any 
particular  Congress  have  been  good  or  bad  ;  at 
the  opening  of  its  sessions  there  was  no  deter- 
minate policy  to  look  forward  to,  and  at  their 
^  Green's  History  of  the  English  People,  vol.  iv.,  pp.  202,  20a 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       189 

close  no  accomplished  plans  to  look  back  upon. 
During  its  brief  lifetime  both  parties  may  have 
vacillated  and  gone  astray,  policies  may  have 
shifted  and  wandered,  and  untold  mischief,  to- 
gether with  some  good,  may  have  been  done  ;  but 
when  all  is  reviewed,  it  is  next  to  impossible 
oftentimes  to  distribute  justly  the  blame  and  the 
praise.  A  few  stubborn  committee-men  may  be 
at  the  bottom  of  much  of  the  harm  that  has  been 
wrought,  but  they  do  not  represent  their  party, 
and  it  cannot  be  clear  to  the  voter  how  his  bal- 
lot is  to  change  the  habits  of  Congress  for  the 
better.  He  distrusts  Congress  because  he  feels 
that  he  cannot  control  it. 

The  voter,  moreover,  feels  that  his  want  of 
confidence  in  Congress  is  justified  by  what  he 
hears  of  the  power  of  corrupt  lobbyists  to  turn 
legislation  to  their  own  uses.  He  hears  of  enor- 
mous subsidies  begged  and  obtained ;  of  pen- 
sions procured  on  commission  by  professional 
pension  solicitors ;  of  appropriations  made  in  the 
interest  of  dishonest  contractors ;  and  he  is  not 
altogether  unwarranted  in  the  conclusion  that 
these  are  evils  inherent  in  the  very  nature  of 
Congress,  for  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
power  of  the  lobbyist  consists  in  great  part,  if 
not  altogether,  in  the  facility  afforded  him  by 
the  Committee  system.  He  must,  in  the  natural 
course  of  things,   have    many  most  favorable 


190  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

opportunities  for  approaching  the  great  money- 
dispensing  Committees.  It  would  be  imprac- 
ticable to  work  up  his  schemes  in  the  broad 
field  of  the  whole  House,  but  in  the  member- 
ship of  a  Committee  he  finds  manageable  num- 
bers. If  he  can  gain  the  ear  of  the  Committee, 
or  of  any  influential  portion  of  it,  he  has  prac- 
tically gained  the  ear  of  the  House  itself ;  if  his 
plans  once  get  footing  in  a  committee  report, 
they  may  escape  criticism  altogether,  and  it  will, 
in  any  case,  be  very  difficult  to  dislodge  them. 
This  accessibility  of  the  Committees  by  outsiders 
gives  to  illegitimate  influences  easy  approach  at 
all  points  of  legislation,  but  no  Committees  are 
affected  by  it  so  often  or  so  unfortunately  as  are 
the  Committees  which  control  the  public  moneys. 
They  are  naturally  the  ones  whose  favor  is  often- 
est  and  most  importunately,  as  well  as  most  in- 
sidiously, sought ;  and  no  description  of  our  sys- 
tem of  revenue,  appropriation,  and  supply  would 
be  complete  without  mention  of  the  manufactur- 
ers who  cultivate  the  favor  of  the  Committee  of 
Ways  and  Means,  of  the  interested  persons  who 
walk  attendance  upon  the  Committee  on  Rivers 
and  Harbors,  and  of  the  mail-contractors  and 
subsidy-seekers  who  court  the  Committee  on  Ap- 
propriations. 

My  last  point  of  critical  comment  upon  our 
system  of  financial  administration  I  shall  bor- 


THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES.       191 

row  from  a  perspicacious  critic  of  congressional 
methods  who  recently  wrote  thus  to  one  of  the 
best  of  American  journals  :  "  So  long  as  the 
debit  side  of  the  national  account  is  managed 
by  one  set  of  men,  and  the  credit  side  by  an- 
other set,  both  sets  working  separately  and  in 
secret,  without  any  public  responsibility,  and 
without  any  intervention  on  the  part  of  the  exec- 
utive official  who  is  nominally  responsible  ;  so 
long  as  these  sets,  being  composed  largely  of  new 
men  every  two  years,  give  no  attention  to  busi- 
ness except  when  Congress  is  in  session,  and  thus 
spend  in  preparing  plans  the  whole  time  which 
ought  to  he  spent  in  public  discussion  of  plans 
already  matured.,  so  that  an  immense  budget  is 
rushed  through  without  discussion  in  a  week  or 
ten  days, — just  so  long  the  finances  will  go  from 
bad  to  worse,  no  matter  by  what  name  you  call 
the  party  in  power.  No  other  nation  on  earth 
attempts  such  a  thing,  or  could  attempt  it  with- 
out soon  coming  to  grief,  our  salvation  thus  far 
consisting  in  an  enormous  income,  with  prac- 
tically no  drain  for  military  expenditure."  ^  Un- 
questionably this  strikes  a  very  vital  point  of 
criticism.  Congress  spends  its  time  working,  in 
sections,  at  preparing  plans,  instead  of  confining 
itself  to  what  is  for  a  numerous  assembly  mani- 
festly the  much  more  useful  and  proper  function 
1  "G.  B."  in  N.  Y.  Nation,  Nov.  30,  1882. 


192  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

of  debating  and  revising  plans  prepared  before- 
hand for  its  consideration  by  a  commission  of 
skilled  men,  old  in  political  practice  and  in  legis- 
lative habit,  whose  official  life  is  apart  from  its 
own,  though  dependent  upon  its  will.  Here,  in 
other  words,  is  another  finger  pointing  to  Mr. 
Mill's  question  as  to  the  best  "  legislative  com- 
mission." Our  Committees  fall  short  of  being 
the  best  form  of  commission,  not  only  in  being 
too  nimaerous  but  also  in  being  integral  parts  of 
the  body  which  they  lead,  having  no  life  apart 
from  it.  Probably  the  best  working  commis- 
sion would  be  one  which  shotild  make  plans  for 
government  independently  of  the  representative 
body,  and  in  immediate  contact  with  the  prac- 
tical affairs  of  administration,  but  which  should 
in  all  cases  look  to  that  body  for  the  sanction- 
ing of  those  plans,  and  should  be  immediately 
responsible  to  it  for  their  success  when  put  into 
operation. 


IV. 

THE  SENATE. 

This  is  a  Senate,  a  Senate  of  equals,  of  men  of  indiTidual  honor  and 
personal  character,  and  of  absolute  independence.  We  know  no  masters, 
we  acknowledge  no  dictators.  This  is  a  hall  for  mutual  consultation  and 
discussion,  not  an  arena  for  the  exhibition  of  champions.  —  Daniel  Wbb- 

STEB. 

The  Senate  of  the  United  States  has  been 
both  extravagantly  praised  and  unreasonably 
disparaged,  according  to  the  predisposition  and 
temper  of  its  various  critics.  In  the  eyes  of 
some  it  has  a  stateliness  of  character,  an  emi- 
nency  of  prerogative,  and,  for  the  most  part,  a 
wisdom  of  practice  such  as  no  other  delibera- 
tive body  possesses  ;  whilst  in  the  estimation  of 
others  it  is  now,  whatever  it  may  have  been  for- 
merly, but  a  somewhat  select  company  of  lei- 
surely "  bosses,"  in  whose  companionship  the 
few  men  of  character  and  high  purpose  who  gain 
admission  to  its  membership  find  little  that  is 
encouraging  and  nothing  that  is  congenial.  Now 
of  course  neither  of  these  extreme  opinions  so 
much  as  resembles  the  uncolored  truth,  nor  can 
that  truth  be  obtained  by  a  judicious  mixture  of 

18 


194  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

(Jbeir  milder  ingredients.  The  truth  is,  in  this 
case  as  in  so  many  others,  something  quite  com- 
monplace and  practical.  The  Senate  is  just 
what  the  mode  of  its  election  and  the  condi- 
tions of  public  life  in  this  country  make  it.  Its 
members  are  chosen  from  the  ranks  of  active 
politicians,  in  accordance  with  a  law  of  natural 
selection  to  which  the  state  legislatures  are  com- 
monly obedient ;  and  it  is  probable  that  it  con- 
tains, consequently,  the  best  men  that  our  sys- 
tem calls  into  politics.  If  these  best  men  are  not 
good,  it  is  because  our  system  of  government 
fails  to  attract  better  men  by  its  prizes,  not 
because  the  country  affords  or  could  afford  no 
finer  material. 

It  has  been  usual  to  suppose  that  the  Senate 
was  just  what  the  Constitution  intended  it  to  be  ; 
that  because  its  place  in  the  federal  system  was 
exalted  the  aims  and  character  of  its  members 
would  naturally  be  found  to  be  exalted  as  well ; 
that  because  its  term  was  long  its  foresight 
would  be  long  also ;  or  that  because  its  election 
was  not  directly  of  the  people  demagogy  would 
find  no  life  possible  in  its  halls.  But  the  Sen- 
ate is  in  fact,  of  course,  nothing  more  than  a 
part,  though  a  considerable  part,  of  the  public 
service,  and  if  the  general  conditions  of  that 
service  be  such  as  to  starve  statesmen  and  foster 
demagogues,  the  Senate  itself  will  be  full  of  the 


THE  SENATE.  195 

latter  kind,  simply  because  there  are  no  others 
available.  There  cannot  be  a  separate  breed 
of  public  men  reared  specially  for  the  Senate. 
It  must  be  recruited  from  the  lower  branches 
of  the  representative  system,  of  which  it  is  only 
the  topmost  part.  No  stream  can  be  purer  than 
its  sources.  The  Senate  can  have  in  it  no  bet- 
ter men  than  the  best  men  of  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives ;  and  if  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives attract  to  itself  only  inferior  talent,  the 
Senate  must  put  up  with  the  same  sort.  I  think 
it  safe  to  say,  therefore,  that,  though  it  may  not 
be  as  good  as  could  be  wished,  the  Senate  is  as 
good  as  it  can  be  under  the  circumstances.  It 
contains  the  most  perfect  product  of  our  poli- 
tics, whatever  that  product  may  be. 

In  order  to  understand  and  appreciate  the 
Senate,  therefore,  one  must  know  the  conditions 
of  public  life  in  this  country.  What  are  those 
conditions  ?  Well,  in  the  first  place,  they  are 
not  what  they  were  in  the  early  years  of  the 
federal  government ;  they  are  not  what  they  were 
even  twenty  years  ago ;  for  in  this,  as  in  other 
things,  the  war  between  the  States  ends  one  dis- 
tinct period  and  opens  another.  Between  the 
great  constructive  statesmen  of  the  revolutionary 
days  and  the  reconstructing  politicians  of  the 
sixties  there  came  into  public  place  and  legisla- 
tive influence  a  great  race  of  constitutional  law- 


196  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

yers.  The  questions  which  faced  our  statesmen 
while  the  Constitution  was  a-making  were  in  the 
broadest  sense  questions  of  politics ;  but  the 
questions  which  dominated  our  public  life  after 
the  federal  government  had  been  successfully 
set  up  were  questions  of  legal  interpretation  such 
as  only  lawyers  could  grapple  with.  All  matters 
of  policy,  all  doubts  -of  legislation,  even  all  diffi- 
cidties  of  diplomacy,  were  measured  by  ndes  of 
constitutional  construction.  There  was  hardly 
a  single  affair  of  public  concern  which  was  not 
hung  upon  some  peg  of  constitutional  dogma  in 
the  testing-rooms  of  one  or  another  of  the  con- 
tending schools  of  constitutional  interpretation. 
Constitutional  issues  were  ever  the  tides,  ques- 
tions of  administrative  policy  seldom  more  than 
the  eddies,  of  politics. 

The  Republicans  under  Jefferson  drew  their 
nourishment  from  constitutional  belief  no  less 
than  did  the  Federalists ;  the  Whigs  and  Dem- 
ocrats of  a  later  day  lived  on  what  was  essentially 
the  same  diet,  though  it  was  served  in  slightly 
different  forms  ;  and  the  parties  of  to-day  are 
themselves  fain  to  go  to  these  cooks  of  the  olden 
time  whenever  they  desire  strong  meat  to  fortify 
them  against  their  present  debility.  The  great 
questions  attending  the  admission  of  new  States 
to  the  Union  and  the  annexation  of  foreign  ter- 
ritory, as  well  as  all  the  controversies  which  came 


THE  SENATE.  197 

in  the  train  of  the  contest  over  slavery  and  the 
reserved  powers  of  the  States,  were  of  the  Con- 
stitution constitutional ;  and  what  other  ques- 
tions were  then  living  —  save  those  which  found 
root  in  the  great  charter's  implied  powers,  about 
which  there  was  such  constant  noise  of  debate  ? 
It  will  be  remembered  that  very  few  publicists 
opposed  internal  improvements,  for  instance,  on 
the  ground  that  they  were  unwise  or  imcalled 
for.  No  one  who  took  a  statesmanlike  view  of 
the  matter  could  fail  to  see  that  the  opening  up 
of  the  great  water-ways  of  the  country,  the  con- 
struction of  roads,  the  cutting  of  canals,  or  any 
public  work  which  might  facilitate  inter -State 
commerce  by  making  intercourse  between  the 
various  portions  of  the  Union  easy  and  rapid, 
was  sanctioned  by  every  consideration  of  wisdom, 
as  being  in  conformity  with  a  policy  at  once 
national  in  its  spirit  and  universal  in  its  benefits. 
The  doubt  was,  not  as  to  what  it  would  be  best 
and  most  provident  to  do,  but  as  to  what  it  would 
be  lawful  to  do;  and  the  chief  opponents  of 
schemes  of  internal  improvement  based  their 
dissent  upon  a  careful  meditation  ol  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Constitution.  Without  its  plain 
approval  they  would  not  move,  even  if  they  had 
to  stand  still  all  their  days. 

It  was,  too,  with    many  professions  of  this 
spirit  that  the  tariff  was  dealt  with.      It  ran 


198  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

suddenly  to  the  front  as  a  militant  party  que* 
tion  in  1833,  not  as  if  a  great  free-trade  move- 
ment had  been  set  afoot  which  was  to  anticipate 
the  mission  of  Cobden  and  Bright,  but  as  an 
issue  between  federal  taxation  and  the  consti- 
tutional privileges  of  the  States.  The  agi'icul- 
tural  States  were  being,  as  they  thought,  very 
cruelly  trodden  down  under  the  iron  heel  of  that 
protectionist  policy  to  whose  enthronement  they 
had  themselves  consented,  and  they  fetched  their 
hope  of  escape  from  the  Constitution.  The  fed- 
eral government  unquestionably  possessed,  they 
admitted,  and  that  by  direct  grant  of  the  funda- 
mental law,  the  right  to  impose  duties  on  im- 
ports ;  but  did  that  right  carry  with  it  the  priv- 
ilege of  laying  discriminating  duties  for  other 
purposes  than  that  of  raising  legitimate  revenue  ? 
Could  the  Constitution  have  meant  that  South 
Carolina  might  be  taxed  to  maintain  the  manu- 
factures of  New  England  ? 

Close  upon  the  heels  of  the  great  tariff  contro- 
versy of  that  time  came  the  stupendous  contest 
over  the  right  of  secession  and  the  abolition  of 
slavery ;  and  again  in  this  contest,  as  in  all  that 
had  gone  before,  the  party  which  was  being  hard 
driven  sought  refuge  in  the  Constitution.  This 
too  was,  in  its  first  stages  at  least,  a  lawyer's 
question.  It  eventually  slipped  out  of  all  law- 
yerly  control,  and  was  given  over  to  be  settled 


THE  SENATE.  199 

by  the  stem  and  savage  processes  of  war ;  but  it 
stayed  with  the  constitutional  lawyers  as  long  as 
it  could,  and  would  have  stayed  with  them,  to  the 
end  had  it  not  itself  been  bigger  than  the  Con- 
stitution and  mixed  with  such  interests  and  such 
passions  as  were  beyond  the  control  of  legislatures 
or  of  law  courts. 

Such  samples  of  the  character  which  political 
questions  have  hitherto  borne  in  this  country  are 
sufficient  to  remind  all  readers  of  our  history  of 
what  have  been  the  chief  features  of  our  politics, 
and  may  serve,  without  further  elaboration,  to 
illustrate  the  point  I  wish  to  emphasize.  It  is 
manifest  how  such  a  course  of  politics  would  affect 
statesmanship  and  political  leadership.  While 
questions  affecting  the  proper  construction  of  the 
Constitution  were  the  chief  and  most  imperative 
questions  pressing  for  settlement,  great  lawyers 
were  in  demand ;  and  great  lawyers  were,  accord- 
ingly, forthcoming  in  satisfaction  of  the  demand. 
In  a  land  like  ours,  where  litigation  is  facilitated 
by  the  establishment  of  many  open  and  impartial 
courts,  great  lawyers  are  a  much  more  plentiful 
product  than  great  administrators,  unless  there 
be  also  some  extraordinary  means  for  the  encour- 
agement of  administrative  talents.  We  have, 
accordingly,  always  had  plenty  of  excellent  law- 
yers, though  we  have  often  had  to  do  without 
even  tolerable  administrators,  and  seem  destined 


200  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

to  endure  the  inconvenience  of  hereafter  doing 
without  any  constructive  statesmen  at  all.  The 
constitutional  issues  of  former  times  were  so 
big  and  so  urgent  that  they  brought  great  advo- 
cates into  the  field,  despite  all  the  tendencies 
there  were  in  our  system  towards  depriving  lead- 
ership of  all  place  of  authority.  In  the  presence 
of  questions  affecting  the  very  structure  and 
powers  of  the  federal  government,  parties  had  to 
rally  with  definite  purpose  and  espouse  a  distinct 
creed ;  and  when  the  maintenance  or  overthrow 
of  slavery  had  ceased  to  be  a  question  of  consti- 
tutional right,  and  had  become  a  matter  of  con- 
tention between  sentiment  and  vested  rights,  — 
between  interest  and  passionate  feeling, — there 
was  of  course  a  hot  energy  of  contest  between 
two  compact  hosts  and  a  quick  elevation  of  force- 
ful leaders. 

The  three  stages  of  national  growth  which 
preceded  the  war  between  the  States  were  each  of 
them  creative  of  a  distinct  class  of  political  lead- 
ers. In  the  period  of  erection  there  were  great 
architects  and  master-builders ;  in  the  period  of 
constitutional  interpretation  there  were,  at  a  dis- 
tance from  the  people,  great  political  schoolmen 
who  pondered  and  expounded  the  letter  of  the 
law,  and,  nearer  the  people,  great  constitutional 
advocates  who  cast  the  doctrines  of  the  school- 
men into  policy ;  and  in  the  period  of  abolitionist 


THE  SENATE.  201 

agitation  there  were  great  masters  of  feeling  and 
leaders  of  public  purpose.  The  publicists  of  the 
second  period  kept  charge  of  the  slavery  question, 
as  I  have  said,  as  long  as  they  could,  and  gave 
place  with  bitter  reluctance  to  the  anti-slavery 
orators  and  pro-slavery  champions  who  were  to 
talk  the  war-feeling  into  a  flame.  But  it  was  of 
course  inevitable  that  the  new  movement  should 
have  new  leaders.  It  was  essentially  revolution- 
ary in  its  tone  and  in  its  designs,  and  so  quite 
out  of  the  reach  of  those  principles  of  action 
which  had  governed  the  policy  of  the  older  school 
of  politicians.  Its  aim  was  to  change,  not  to 
vindicate,  the  Constitution.  Its  leaders  spoke, 
not  words  of  counsel,  but  words  of  passion  and 
of  command.  It  was  a  crusade,  not  a  campaign; 
the  impetuous  movement  of  a  cause,  not  the  can- 
vass of  a  mooted  measure.  And,  like  every  big, 
stirring  cause,  it  had  its  leaders  —  leaders  whose 
authority  rested  upon  the  affections  and  sym- 
pathies of  the  people  rather  than  upon  any  at- 
tested wisdom  or  success  of  statesmanship.  The 
war  was  the  work,  mediately,  of  philanthropists; 
and  the  reconstructions  which  followed  the  war 
were  the  hasty  strokes  of  these  same  unbalanced 
knights  of  the  crusade,  full  of  bold  feeling,  but 
not  of  steady  or  far-sighted  judgment. 

The  anti-slavery  movement  called  forth  leaders 
who,  from  the  very  nature  of  their  calling,  were 


"202  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

more  picturesque  than  any  who  had.  figured  on 
the  national  stage  since  the  notable  play  of  the 
Revolution  had  gone  off  the  boards ;  but  it  was 
no  better  cast  in  leading  parts  than  had  been  the 
drama  which  immediately  preceded  it.  When 
the  constitution  of  a  self-governing  people  is 
being  consciously  moulded  by  the  rapid  forma- 
tion of  precedent  during  the  earliest  periods  of 
its  existence,  there  are  sure  to  be  antagonistic 
beliefs,  distinct  and  strong  and  active  enough  to 
take  shape  in  the  creeds  of  energetic  parties, 
each  led  by  the  greatest  advocates  of  its  cher- 
ished principles.  The  season  of  our  constitutional 
development,  consequently,  saw  as  fine  a  race  of 
statesmen  at  the  front  of  national  affairs  as  have 
ever  directed  the  civil  policy  of  the  country; 
and  they,  in  turn,  gave  place  to  men  brave  to 
encounter  the  struggles  of  changed  times,  and  fit 
to  solve  the  doubts  of  a  new  set  of  events. 

Since  the  war,  however,  we  have  come  into  a 
fourth  period  of  national  life,  and  are  perplexed 
at  finding  ourselves  denied  a  new  order  of  states- 
manship to  suit  the  altered  conditions  of  govern- 
ment. The  period  of  federal  construction  is  long 
passed ;  questions  of  constitutional  interpretation 
are  no  longer  regarded  as  of  pressing  urgency  •, 
the  war  has  been  fought,  even  the  embers  of  its 
issues  being  now  almost  extinguished ;  and  we 
are  left  to  that  unexciting  but  none  the  less  cap. 


TEE  SENATE.  203 

itally  important  business  of  every-day  peaceful 
development  and  judicious  administration  to 
whose  execution  every  nation  in  its  middle  age 
has  to  address  itself  with  what  sagacity,  energy, 
and  prudence  it  can  command.  It  cannot  be  said 
that  these  new  duties  have  as  yet  raised  up  any 
men  eminently  fit  for  their  f idtiUment.  We  have 
had  no  gi-eat  administrators  since  the  opening  of 
this  newest  stage,  and  there  is  as  yet  no  visible 
sign  that  any  such  will  soon  arise.  The  forms  of 
government  in  this  country  have  always  been 
unfavorable  to  the  easy  elevation  of  talent  to  a 
station  of  paramount  authority ;  and  those  forms 
in  their  present  crystallization  are  more  unfavor- 
able than  ever  to  the  toleration  of  the  leadership 
of  the  few,  whilst  the  questions  now  most  prom- 
inent in  politics  are  not  of  such  a  nature  as  to 
compel  skilled  and  trustworthy  champions  to 
come  into  the  field,  as  did  the  constitutional  is- 
sues and  revolutionary  agitations  of  other  days. 
They  are  matters  of  a  too  quiet,  business-like  sort 
to  enlist  feeling  or  arouse  enthusiasm. 

It  is,  therefore,  very  unfortunate  that  only 
feeling  or  enthusiasm  can  create  recognized  lead- 
ership in  our  politics.  There  is  no  office  set 
apart  for  the  great  party  leader  in  our  govern- 
ment. The  powers  of  the  Speakership  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  are  too  cramped  and 
covert;  the  privileges  of  the  chairmanships  of 


204  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

the  chief  Standing  Committees  are  too  limited  in 
scope ;  the  presidency  is  too  silent  and  inactive, 
too  little  like  a  premiership  and  too  much  like  a 
superintendency.  If  there  be  any  one  man  to 
whom  a  whole  party  or  a  great  national  majority 
looks  for  guiding  counsel,  he  must  lead  without 
office,  as  Daniel  Webster  did,  or  in  spite  of  his 
office,  as  Jefferson  and  Jackson  did.  There  must 
be  something  in  the  times  or  in  the  questions 
which  are  abroad  to  thrust  great  advocates  or 
great  masters  of  purpose  into  a  non-official  lead- 
ership, which  is  theirs  because  they  represent  in 
the  greatest  actions  of  their  lives  some  principle 
at  once  vital  and  widely  loved  or  hated,  or  be- 
cause they  possess  in  their  unrivaled  power  of 
eloquent  speech  the  ability  to  give  voice  to  some 
such  living  theme.  There  must  be  a  cause  to  be 
advanced  which  is  greater  than  the  trammels  of 
governmental  forms,  and  which,  by  authority  of 
its  own  imperative  voice,  constitutes  its  advocates 
the  leaders  of  the  nation,  though  without  giving 
them  official  title  —  without  need  of  official  title. 
No  one  is  authorized  to  lead  by  reason  of  any 
official  station  known  to  our  system.  We  call 
our  real  leaders  by  no  names  but  their  own :  Mr. 
Webster  was  always  Mr.  Webster  and  never 
Prime  Minister. 

In  a  country  which  governs  itself  by  means  of 
a  public  meeting,  a  Congress  or  a  Parliament,  a 


THE  SENATE.  205 

country  whose  political  life  is  representative,  the 
only  yeal  leadership  in  governmental  affairs  must 
be  legislative  leadership  —  ascendency  in  the 
public  meeting  which  decides  everything.  The 
leaders,  if  there  be  any,  must  be  those  who  sug- 
gest the  opinions  and  ride  the  actions  of  the  rep- 
resentative body.  We  have  in  this  country, 
therefore,  no  real  leadership  ;  because  no  man 
is  allowed  to  direct  the  course  of  Congress,  and 
there  is  no  way  of  governing  the  country  save 
through  Congress,  which  is  supreme.  The  chair- 
man of  a  great  Committee  like  the  Committee  of 
Ways  and  Means  stands,  indeed,  at  the  sources 
of  a  very  large  and  important  stream  of  policy, 
and  can  turn  that  stream  at  his  pleasure,  or  mix 
what  he  will  with  its  waters  ;  but  there  are  whole 
provinces  of  policy  in  which  he  can  have  no  au- 
thority at  all.  He  neither  directs,  nor  can  often 
influence,  those  other  chairmen  who  direct  all 
the  other  important  affairs  of  government.  He, 
though  the  greatest  of  chairmen,  and  as  great,  it 
may  be,  as  any  other  one  man  in  the  whole  gov- 
ernmental system,  is  by  no  means  at  the  head  of 
the  government.  He  is,  as  he  feels  every  day, 
only  a  big  wheel  where  there  are  many  other 
wheels,  some  almost  as  big  as  he,  and  aU  driven, 
like  himself,  by  fires  which  he  does  not  kindle  or 
tend. 
In  a  word,  we  have  no  supreme  executive  min* 


206  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

istry,  like  the  great  "  Ministry  of  the  Crown  " 
over  sea,  in  whose  hands  is  the  general  manage* 
ment  of  legislation  ;  and  we  have,  consequently, 
no  great  prizes  of  leadership  such  as  are  calcu- 
lated to  stimulate  men  of  strong  talents  to  great 
and  conspicuous  public  services.  The  Committee 
system  is,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,  the  very 
opposite  of  this.  It  makes  all  the  prizes  of  lead- 
ership small,  and  nowhere  gathers  power  into  a 
few  hands.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  this  is  in 
ordinary  times,  and  in  the  absence  of  stirring 
themes,  a  great  drawback,  inasmuch  as- it  makes 
legislative  service  unattractive  to  minds  of  the 
highest  order,  to  whom  the  offer  of  really  great 
place  and  power  at  the  head  of  the  governing 
assembly,  the  supreme  council  of  the  nation, 
would  be  of  all  things  most  attractive.  If  the 
presidency  were  competitive,  —  if  it  could  be 
won  by  distinguished  congressional  service,  — 
who  can  doubt  that  there  would  be  a  notable  in- 
flux of  talents  into  Congress  and  a  significant 
elevation  of  tone  and  betterment  of  method  in 
its  proceedings  ;  and  yet  the  presidency  is  very 
far  from  being  equal  to  a  first-rate  premiership. 
There  is,  I  know,  one  distinctive  feature  of 
legislative  leadership  which  makes  it  seem  to 
some  not  altogether  to  be  desired;  though  it 
86arcely  constitutes  such  an  objection  as  to  make 
no  leadership  at  all  seem  preferable.     It  is  the 


THE  SENATE.  207 

leadership  of  orators ;  it  is  the  ascendency  of 
those  who  have  a  genius  for  talking.  In  the 
eyes  of  those  who  do  not  like  it  it,  seems  a  leader- 
ship of  artful  dialecticians,  the  success  of  tricks 
of  phrase,  the  victory  of  rushing  declamation  — 
government,  not  by  the  advice  of  statesman-like 
counselors,  but  by  the  wagging  of  ready  tongues. 
Macaulay  pointed  out  with  his  accustomed  force 
of  statement  just  the  fact  which  haunts  those  who 
hold  to  such  objections.  The  power  of  speaking, 
he  said,  which  is  so  highly  prized  by  politicians 
in  a  popular  government,  "may  exist  in  the 
highest  degree  without  judgment,  without  forti- 
tude, without  skill  in  reading  the  characters  of 
men  or  the  signs  of  the  times,  without  any  knowL 
edge  of  the  principles  of  legislation  or  of  polit- 
ical economy,  and  without  any  skill  in  diplomacy 
or  in  the  administration  of  war.  Nay,  it  may 
well  happen  that  those  very  intellectual  qualities 
which  give  peculiar  charm  to  the  speeches  of  a 
public  man  may  be  incompatible  with  the  quali- 
ties which  would  fit  him  to  meet  a  pressing  emer- 
gency with  promptitude  and  firmness.  It  was 
thus  with  Charles  Townshend.  It  was  thus  with 
Windham.  It  was  a  privilege  to  listen  to  those 
acbomplished  and  ingenious  orators.  But  in  a 
perilous  crisis  they  would  be  found  inferior  in 
all  the  qiialities  of  rulers  to  such  a  man  as  Oli- 
ver Cromwell,  who  talked  nonsense,  or  as  Wil- 
liam the  Silent,  who  did  not  talk  at  all." 


208  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  neither 
Windham  nor  Townshend  rose  to  places  of 
highest  confidence  in  the  assembly  which  they 
served,  and  which  they  charmed  by  their  attrac- 
tive powers  of  speech ;  and  that  Cromwell  woidd 
have  been  as  unfit  to  rule  anything  but  an  auto- 
cratic commonwealth  as  would  have  been  William 
the  Silent  to  be  anything  but  a  Dutch  governor. 
The  people  really  had  no  voice  in  Cromwell's 
government.  It  was  absolute.  He  would  have 
been  as  much  out  of  place  in  a  representative 
government  as  a  bull  in  a  china  shop.  We 
would  not  have  a  Bismarck  if  we  coidd. 

Every  species  of  government  has  the  defects 
of  its  own  qualities.  Representative  government 
is  government  by  advocacy,  by  discussion,  by 
persuasion,  and  a  great,  miscellaneous  voting 
population  is  often  misled  by  deceitful  pleas  and 
swayed  by  unwise  counsels.  But  if  one  were  to 
make  a  somewhat  freer  choice  of  examples  than 
Macaulay  permitted  himself,  it  would  be  easy  to 
multiply  the  instances  of  ruling  orators  of  our 
race  who  have  added  to  their  gifts  of  eloquence 
conspicuous  sagacity  in  the  administration  of 
affairs.  At  any  rate,  the  men  who  have  led  pop- 
idar  assemblies  have  often  been,  like  Hampden, 
rarely  endowed  with  judgment,  foresight,  and 
steadfastness  of  purpose ;  like  Walpole,  amaz- 
ingly quick  in  "  reading  the  characters  of  men 


TEE  SENATE.  209 

and  the  signs  of  the  times ; "  like  Chatham, 
masterful  in  ordering  the  conquests  and  the  pol- 
icies of  the  world ;  like  Burke,  learned  in  the  pro- 
foundest  principles  of  statecraft ;  like  Canning, 
adroit  in  diplomacy  ;  like  Pitt,  safe  in  times  of 
revolution ;  like  Peel,  sagacious  in  finance ;  or, 
like  Gladstone,  skilled  in  every  branch  of  polit- 
ical knowledge  and  equal  to  any  strain  of  emer- 
gency. 

It  is  natural  that  orators  should  be  the  lead- 
ers of  a  self-governing  people.  Men  may  be 
clever  and  engaging  speakers,  such  as  are  to  be 
found,  doubtless,  at  half  the  bars  of  the  country, 
without  being  equipped  even  tolerably  for  any  of 
the  high  duties  of  the  statesman ;  but  men  can 
scarcely  be  orators  without  that  force  of  char- 
acter, that  readiness  of  resource,  that  clearness 
of  vision,  that  grasp  of  intellect,  that  courage  of 
conviction,  that  earnestness  of  purpose,  and  that 
instinct  and  capacity  for  leadership  which  are  the 
eight  horses  that  draw  the  triumphal  chariot  of 
every  leader  and  ruler  of  free  men.  We  could 
not  object  to  being  ruled  again  by  such  men  as 
Henry  and  Otis  and  Samuel  Adams ;  but  they 
were  products  of  revolution.  They  were  inspired 
by  the  great  causes  of  the  time  ;  and  the  govern- 
ment which  they  set  up  has  left  us  without  any 
ordinary,  peaceful  means  of  bringing  men  like 
them  into  public  life.     We  should  like  to  have 

14 


210  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

more  like  them,  but  the  violent  exercise  of  revo- 
lution  is  too  big  a  price  to  pay  for  them.  Some 
less  pmigent  diet  is  to  be  desired  for  the  pur- 
pose of  giving  health  to  our  legislative  service. 
There  ought  to  be  some  quiet,  effective  tonic, 
some  mild  stimulant,  such  as  the  certain  prospect 
of  winning  highest  and  most  honorable  office,  to 
infuse  the  best  talent  of  the  nation  into  our  pub- 
lic life. 

These,  then,  are  the  conditions  of  public  life 
which  make  the  House  of  Representatives  what 
it  is,  a  disintegrate  mass  of  jarring  elements,  and 
the  Senate  what  it  is,  a  small,  select,  and  leisurely 
House  of  Representatives.  Or  perhaps  it  would 
be  nearer  the  whole  truth  to  say  that  these  are 
the  circumstances  and  this  the  frame  of  govern- 
ment of  which  the  two  Houses  form  a  part.  Were 
the  Senate  not  supplied  principally  by  promo- 
tions from  the  House,  —  if  it  had,  that  is,  a 
membership  made  up  of  men  specially  trained 
for  its  peculiar  duties,  —  it  would  probably  be 
much  more  effective  than  it  is  in  fulfilling  the 
great  function  of  instructive  and  business-like  de- 
bate of  public  questions  ;  for  its  duties  are  enough 
unlike  those  of  the  House  to  be  called  peculiar. 
Men  who  have  acquired  all  their  habits  in  the 
matter  of  dealing  with  legislative  measures  in  the 
House  of  Representatives,  where  committee  work 
is  everything  and  public  discussion  nothing  but 


THE  SENATE.  211 

•*  talking  to  the  country,"  find  themselves  still 
mere  declaimers  when  they  get  into  the  Senate, 
where  no  previous  question  utters  its  interrupt- 
ing voice  from  the  tongues  of  tyrannical  com- 
mittee-men, and  where,  consequently,  talk  is  free 
to  all.i  Only  superior  talents,  such  as  very  few 
men  possess,  could  enable  a  Representative  of 
long  training  to  change  his  spots  upon  entering 
the  Senate.  Most  men  will  not  fit  more  than 
one  sphere  in  life ;  and  after  they  have  been 
stretched  or  compressed  to  the  measure  of  that 
one  they  will  rattle  about  loosely  or  stick  too  tight 
in  any  other  into  which  they  may  be  thrust.  Still, 
more  or  less  adjustment  takes  place  in  every  case. 
If  a  new  Senator  knock  about  too  loosely  amidst 
the  free  spaces  of  the  rules  of  that  august  body, 
he  will  assuredly  have  some  of  his  biggest  cor- 
ners knocked  o££  and  his  angularities  thus  made 
smoother ;  if  he  stick  fast  amongst  the  dignified 
courtesies  and  punctilious  observances  of  the 
upper  chamber,  he  will,  if  he  stick  long  enough, 
finally  wear  down  to  such  a  size,  by  jostling,  as 
to  attain  some  motion  more  or  less  satisfactory. 
But  it  must  be  said,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
even  if  the  Senate  were  made  up  of  something 

1  An  attempt  was  once  made  to  bring  the  previous  qnestion 
into  the  practices  of  the  Senate,  but  it  failed  of  success,  and  so 
that  imperative  form  of  cutting  off  all  further  discussion  has 
^rtnnately  never  found  a  place  there. 


212  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

better  than  selections  from  the  House,  it  would 
probably  be  able  to  do  little  more  than  it  does  in 
the  way  of  giving  efficiency  to  our  system  of  legis- 
lation. For  it  has  those  same  radical  defects  of 
organization  which  weaken  the  House.  Its  func- 
tions also,  like  those  of  the  House,  are  segregated 
in  the  prerogatives  of  numerous  Standing  Cora- 
mittees.i  In  this  regard  Congress  is  all  of  a 
piece.  There  is  in  the  Senate  no  more  oppor- 
tunity than  exists  in  the  House  for  gaining  such 
recognized  party  leadership  as  would  be  likely  to 
enlarge  a  man  by  giving  him  a  sense  of  power, 
and  to  steady  and  sober  him  by  filling  him  with 
a  grave  sense  of  responsibility.  So  far  as  its 
organization  controls  it,  the  Senate,  notwithstand- 
ing the  one  or  two  special  excellences  which 
make  it  more  temperate  and  often  more  rational 
than  the  House,  has  no  virtue  which  marks  it  as 
of  a  different  nature.  Its  proceedings  bear  most 
of  the  characteristic  features  of  committee  rule.^ 

^  As  regards  all  financial  measures  indeed  committee  super- 
vision is  specially  thorough  in  the  Senate.  "  AH. amendments 
to  general  appropriation  bills  reported  from  the  Committees 
of  the  Senate,  proposing  new  items  of  appropriation,  shall, 
one  day  before  they  are  offered,  be  referred  to  the  Committee 
on  Appropriations,  and  all  general  appropriation  bills  shall  be 
referred  to  said  Committee  ;  and  in  like  manner  amendments 
to  bills  making  appropriations  for  rivers  and  harbors  shall  be 
again  referred  to  the  Committee  to  which  such  bills  shall  be 
referred."  —  Senate  Rule  30. 

3  The  twenty-nine  Standing  Committees  of  the  Senate  are^ 


THE  SENATE.  213 

Its  conclusions  are  suggested  now  by  one  set  of 
its  members,  now  by  another  set,  and  again  by  a 
third ;  an  arrangement  which  is  of  course  quite 
effective  in  its  case,  as  in  that  of  the  House,  in 
depriving  it  of  that  leadership  which  is  valuable 
in  more  ways  than  in  imparting  distinct  purpose 
to  legislative  action,  because  it  concentrates  party 
responsibility,  attracts  the  best  talents,  and  fixes 
public  interest. 

Some  Senators  are,  indeed,  seen  to  be  of  larger 
mental  stature  and  built  of  stauncher  moral  stuff 
than  their  fellow-members,  and  it  is  not  uncom- 
mon for  individual  members  to  become  conspic- 
uous figures  in  every  great  event  in  the  Senate's 
deliberations.  The  public  now  and  again  picks 
out  here  and  there  a  Senator  who  seems  to  act 
and  to  speak  with  true  instinct  of  statesmanship 
and  who  unmistakably  merits  the  confidence  of 
colleagues  and  of  people.  But  such  a  man,  how- 
ever eminent,  is  never  more  than  a  Senator.  No 
one  is  the  Senator.  No  one  may  speak  for  his 
party  as  well  as  for  himself ;  no  one  exercises 
the  special  trust  of  acknowledged  leadership. 
The  Senate  is  merely  a  body  of  individual  crit- 
ics, representing  most  of  the  not  very  diversified 
types  of  a  society  substantially  homogeneous ; 
and  the  weight  of  every  criticism  uttered  in  its 

however,  chosen  by  ballot,  not  appointed  by  the  Vice-Prest 
dent,  who  ia  an  appendage,  not  a  member,  of  the  Senate. 


214  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

chamber  depends  upon  the  weight  of  the  critic 
who  utters  it,  deriving  little  if  any  addition  to 
its  specific  gra^dty  from  connection  with  the 
designs  of  a  purposeful  party  organization.  I 
cannot  insist  too  much  upon  this  defect  of  con- 
gressional government,  because  it  is  evidently 
radical.  Leadership  with  authority  over  a  great 
ruling  party  is  a  prize  to  attract  great  compet- 
itors, and  is  in  a  free  government  the  only  prize 
that  will  attract  great  competitors.  Its  attrac- 
tiveness is  abundantly  illustrated  in  the  opera- 
tions of  the  British  system.  In  England,  where 
members  of  the  Cabinet,  which  is  merely  a  Com- 
mittee of  the  House  of  Commons,  are  the  rulers 
of  the  empire,  a  career  in  the  Commons  is  ea- 
gerly sought  by  men  of  the  rarest  gifts,  because 
a  career  there  is  the  best  road,  is  indeed  the  only 
road,  to  membership  of  the  great  Committee.  A 
part  in  the  life  of  Congress,  on  the  contrary, 
though  the  best  career  opened  to  men  of  ambition 
by  our  system,  has  no  prize  at  its  end  greater 
than  membership  of  some  one  of  numerous  Com- 
mittees, between  which  there  is  some  choice,  to 
be  sure,  because  some  of  them  have  great  and 
others  only  small  jurisdictions,  but  none  of  which 
has  the  distinction  of  supremacy  in  policy  or  of 
recognized  authority  to  do  more  than  suggest. 
And  posts  upon  such  Committees  are  the  highest 
posts  in  the  Senate  just  as  they  are  in  the  House 
of  Representatives. 


THE  SENATE.  215 

In  an  address  delivered  on  a  recent  occasion,^ 
in  the  capacity  of  President  of  the  Birmingham 
and  Midland  Institute,  Mr.  Froude,  having  in 
mind,  of  course,  British  forms  of  government, 
but  looking  mediately  at  all  popular  systems, 
said  very  pointedly  that  "  In  party  government 
party  life  becomes  like  a  court  of  justice.  The 
people  are  the  judges,  the  politicians  the  advo- 
cates, who,"  he  adds  caustically  rather  than 
justly,  "  only  occasionally  and  by  accident  speak 
their  real  opinions."  "  The  truly  great  political 
orators,"  he  exclaims,  "  are  the  ornaments  of  man- 
kind, the  most  finished  examples  of  noble  feeling 
and  perfect  expression,  but  they  rarely  understand 
the  circumstances  of  their  time.  They  feel  pas- 
sionately, but  for  that  reason  they  cannot  judge 
calmly."  If  we  are  to  accept  these  judgments 
from  Mr.  Froude  in  the  face  of  his  reputation 
for  thinking  somewhat  too  independently  of  evi- 
dence, we  shoidd  congratulate  ourselves  that  we 
have  in  this  country  hit  upon  a  system  which, 
now  that  it  has  reached  its  pefection,  has  left 
little  or  no  place  for  politicians  to  make  false 
declarations  or  for  the  orator  to  coin  fine  expres- 
sion for  views  which  are  only  feelings,  except 
outside  of  the  legislative  halls  of  the  nation,  upon 
the  platform,  where  talk  is  all  that  is  expected. 

1  In  the  Birmingham  Town  Hall,  November  3,  1882.     I 
^uote  from  the  report  of  the  London  Times. 


216  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

It  would  seem  as  if  the  seer  had  a  much  more 
favorable  opportunity  in  the  committee-room  than 
the  orator  can  have,  and  with  us  it  is  the  com- 
mittee-room which  governs  the  legislative  cham- 
ber. The  speech-making  in  the  latter  neither 
makes  nor  often  seriously  affects  the  plans  framed 
in  the  former  ;  because  the  plans  are  made  before 
the  speeches  are  uttered.  This  is  self-evident  of 
the  debates  of  the  House ;  but  even  the  speeches 
made  in  the  Senate,  free,  full,  and  earnest  as  they 
seem,  are  made,  so  to  speak,  after  the  fact  —  not 
to  determine  the  actions  but  to  air  the  opinions 
of  the  body. 

Still,  it  must  be  regarded  as  no  inconsiderable 
addition  to  the  usefulness  of  the  Senate  that  it 
enjoys  a  much  greater  freedom  of  discussion  than 
the  House  can  allow  itself.  It  permits  itself  a 
good  deal  of  talk  in  public  about  what  it  is  doing,i 
and  it  commonly  talks  a  great  deal  of  sense.  It 
is  small  enough  to  make  it  safe  to  allow  individ- 
ual freedom  to  its  members,  and  to  have,  at  the 
same  time,  such  order  and  sense  of  proportion  in 
its  proceedings  as  is  characteristic  of  small  bodies, 
like  boards  of  college  trustees  or  of  commercial 
directors,  who  feel  that  their  main  object  is  busi- 
ness, not  speech-making,  and  so  say  all  that  is 

1  "No  Senator  shall  speak  more  than  twice,  in  any  one  de- 
bate, on  the  same  day,  without  leave  of  the  Senate."  —  Senate 
Bole  4. 


THE  SENATE.  217 

necessary  without  being  tedious,  and  do  what 
they  are  called  upon  to  do  without  need  of  driv- 
ing themselves  with  hurrying  rules.  Such  rides, 
they  seem  to  feel,  are  meant  only  for  big  assem- 
blies which  have  no  power  of  self-control.  Of 
course  the  Senate  talks  more  than  an  average 
board  of  directors  would,  because  the  corporations 
which  it  represents  are  States,  made  up,  politic- 
ally speaking,  of  numerous  popular  constituencies 
to  which  Senators,  no  less  than  Representatives, 
must  make  speeches  of  a  sort  which,  considering 
their  fellow-members  alone,  would  be  unnecessary 
if  not  impertinent  and  out  of  taste,  in  the  Senate 
chamber,  but  which  will  sound  best  in  the  ears 
of  the  people,  for  whose  ears  they  are  intended, 
if  delivered  there.  Speeches  which,  so  to  say, 
run  in  the  name  of  the  Senate's  business  will  gen- 
erally be  more  effectual  for  campaign  uses  at  home 
than  any  speech  could  be  which  should  run  in  the 
name  of  the  proper  topics  of  the  stump.  There 
is  an  air  of  doing  one's  duty  by  one's  party  in 
speaking  party  platitudes  or  uttering  party  defi- 
ances on  the  floor  of  the  Senate  or  of  the  House. 
Of  course,  however,  there  is  less  temptation  to 
such  speech-making  in  the  Senate  than  in  the 
House.  The  House  knows  the  terrible  possibil- 
ities of  this  sort  in  store  for  it,  were  it  to  give 
perfect  freedom  of  debate  to  its  three  hundred 
and  twenty-five  members,  in  these  days  when  fre* 


218  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

quent  mails  and  tireless  tongues  of  telegraphy- 
bring  every  constituency  within  easy  earshot  of 
Washington  ;  and  it  therefore  seeks  to  confine 
what  little  discussion  it  indulges  in  to  the  few 
committee-men  specially  in  charge  of  the  busi- 
ness of  each  moment.  But  the  Senate  is  small 
and  of  settled  habits,  and  has  no  such  bugbear  to 
trouble  it.  It  can  afford  to  do  without  any  cld- 
ture  or  previous  question.  No  Senator  is  likely 
to  want  to  speak  on  all  the  topics  of  the  session, 
or  to  prepare  more  speeches  than  can  conven- 
iently be  spoken  before  adjournment  is  impera- 
tively at  hand.  The  House  can  be  counted  upon 
to  waste  enough  time  to  leave  some  leisure  to 
the  upper  chamber. 

And  there  can  be  no  question  that  the  debates 
which  take  place  every  session  in  the  Senate  are 
of  a  very  high  order  of  excellence.  The  average 
of  the  ability  displayed  in  its  discussions  not  in- 
frequently rises  quite  to  the  level  of  those  con' 
trover sies  of  the  past  which  we  are  wont  to  call 
great  because  they  furnished  occasion  to  men  like 
Webster  and  Calhoun  and  Clay,  whom  we  can- 
not now  quite  match  in  mastery  of  knowledge 
and  of  eloquence.  If  the  debates  of  the  present 
are  smothered  amongst  the  innumerable  folios  of 
the  "  Record,"  it  is  not  because  they  do  not  con- 
tain utterances  worthy  to  be  heeded  and  to  gain 
currency,  but  because   they  do  not  deal  with 


THE  SENATE.  219 

questions  of  passion  or  of  national  existence,  such 
as  ran  through  all  the  earlier  debates,  or  because 
our  system  so  obscures  and  complicates  party 
rule  in  legislation  as  to  leave  nothing  very  inter- 
esting to  the  public  eye  dependent  upon  the  dis- 
cussions of  either  House  or  Senate.  What  that 
is  picturesque,  or  what  that  is  vital  in  the  esteem 
of  the  partisan,  is  there  in  these  wordy  contests 
about  contemplated  legislation  ?  How  does  any- 
body know  that  either  party's  prospects  will  be 
much  affected  by  what  is  said  when  Senators  are 
debating,  or,  for  that  matter,  by  what  is  voted 
after  their  longest  flights  of  controversy  ? 

Still,  though  not  much  heeded,  the  debates  of 
the  Senate  are  of  great  value  in  scrutinizing  and 
sifting  matters  which  come  up  from  the  House. 
The  Senate's  opportunities  for  open  and  unre- 
stricted discussion  and  its  simple,  comparatively 
imencumbered  forms  of  procedure,  unquestion- 
ably enable  it  to  fulfill  with  very  considerable 
success  its  high  functions  as  a  chamber  of  re- 
vision. 

When  this  has  been  claimed  and  admitted, 
however,  it  still  remains  to  be  considered  whether 
two  chambers  of  equal  power  strengthen  by 
steadying,  or  weaken  by  complicating,  a  system 
of  representative  government  like  our  own.  The 
utility  and  excellence  of  a  bicameral  system  has 
never,  I  believe,  been  seriously  questioned  in 


220  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

this  country ;  but  M.  Turgot  smiles  with  some- 
thing like  contempt  at  our  affectation  in  copy- 
ing the  House  of  Lords  without  having  any 
lords  to  use  for  the  purpose ;  and  in  our  own 
day  Mr.  Bagehot,  who  is  much  more  competent 
to  speak  on  this  head  than  was  M.  Turgot,  has 
avowed  very  grave  doubts  as  to  the  practical  ad- 
vantage of  a  two-headed  legislature  —  each  head 
having  its  own  independent  will.  He  finds 
much  to  recommend  the  House  of  Lords  in  the 
fact  that  it  is  not,  as  theory  would  have  it,  co- 
ordinate and  coequal  with  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, but  merely  "  a  revising  and  suspending 
House,"  altering  what  the  Commons  have  done 
hastily  or  carelessly,  and  sometimes  rejecting 
"  Bills  on  which  the  House  of  Commons  is  not 
yet  thoroughly  in  earnest,  —  upon  which  the  na- 
tion is  not  yet  determined."  ^  He  points  out  the 
fact  that  the  House  of  Lords  has  never  in  mod- 
ern times  been,  as  a  House,  coequal  in  power 
with  the  House  of  Commons.  Before  the  Reform 
Bill  of  1832  the  peers  were  all-powerful  in  legis- 
lation ;  not,  however,  because  they  were  mem- 
bers of  the  House  of  Lords,  but  because  they 
nominated  most  of  the  members  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  Since  that  disturbing  reform  they 
have  been  thrown  back  upon  the  functions  in 

^  These  quotations  from  Bagehot  are  taken  from  Tarioui 
parts  of  the  fifth  chapter  of  his  English  Constitution. 


THE  SENATE.  221 

which  they  never  were  strong,  the  functions  of  a 
deliberative  assembly.  These  are  the  facts  which 
seem  to  Mr.  Bagehot  to  have  made  it  possible 
for  legislation  to  make  easy  and  satisfactory 
progress  under  a  system  whose  theory  provided 
for  fatal  dead-locks  between  the  two  branches  of 
the  supreme  legislature. 

In  his  view  "  the  evil  of  two  coequal  Houses 
of  distinct  natures  is  obvious."  "  Most  constitu- 
tions," he  declares,  "  have  committed  this  blun- 
der. The  two  most  remarkable  Republican  in- 
stitutions in  the  world  commit  it.  In  both  the 
American  and  Swiss  Constitutions  the  Upper 
House  has  as  much  authority  as  the  second ;  it 
could  produce  the  maximum  of  impediment  —  a 
dead-lock,  if  it  liked ;  if  it  does  not  do  so,  it  is 
owing  not  to  the  goodness  of  the  legal  constitu- 
tion, but  to  the  discreetness  of  the  members  of 
the  Chamber.  In  both  these  constitutions  this 
dangerous  division  is  defended  by  a  peculiar 
doctrine.  ...  It  is  said  that  there  must  be  in  a 
federal  government  some  institution,  some  au- 
thority, some  body  possessing  a  veto  in  which 
the  separate  States  comprising  the  Confedera- 
tion are  all  equal.  I  confess  this  doctrine  has  to 
me  no  self-evidence,  and  it  is  assumed,  but  not 
proved.  The  State  of  Delaware  is  not  equal  in 
power  or  influence  to  the  State  of  New  York, 
and  you  cannot  make  it  so  by  giving  it  an  equal 


222  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

veto  in  an  Upper  Chamber.  The  history  of  such 
an  institution  is  indeed  most  natural.  A  little 
State  will  like,  and  must  like,  to  see  some  token, 
some  memorial  mark,  of  its  old  independence 
preserved  in  the  Constitution  by  which  that  in- 
dependence is  extinguished.  But  it  is  one  thing 
for  an  institution  to  be  natural,  and  another  for 
it  to  be  expedient.  If  indeed  it  be  that  a  fed- 
eral government  compels  the  erection  of  an  Up- 
per Chamber  of  conclusive  and  coordinate  au- 
thority, it  is  one  more  in  addition  to  the  many 
other  inherent  defects  of  that  kind  of  govern- 
ment. It  may  be  necessary  to  have  the  blemish, 
but  it  is  a  blemish  just  as  much." 

It  would  be  in  the  highest  degree  indiscreet 
to  differ  lightly  with  any  conclusion  to  which 
Mr.  Bagehot  may  have  come  in  viewing  that 
field  of  critical  exposition  in  which  he  was  su- 
preme, the  philosophical  analysis,  namely,  of  the 
English  Constitution  ;  and  it  must  be  apparent 
to  any  one  who  reads  the  passage  I  have  just 
now  quoted  that  his  eye  sees  very  keenly  and 
truly  even  when  he  looks  across  sea  at  institu- 
tions which  were  repugnant  to  his  own  way  of 
thinking.  But  it  is  safe  to  say  that  he  did  not 
see  all  in  this  instance,  and  that  he  was  conse- 
quently in  error  concerning  the  true  nature  of 
our  federal  legislative  system.  His  error,  nev- 
ertheless, appears,  not  when  we  look  only  at  the 


TEE  SENATE.  223 

facts  which  he  held  up  to  view,  but  when  we 
look  at  other  facts  which  he  ignored.  It  is  true 
that  the  existence  of  two  coequal  Houses  is  an 
evil  when  those  two  Houses  are  of  distinct  na- 
tures, as  was  the  case  under  the  Victorian  Con- 
stitution to  which  Mr.  Bagehot  refers  by  way  of 
illustrative  example.  Under  that  Constitution 
all  legislative  business  was  sometimes  to  be  seen 
quite  suspended  because  of  irreconcilable  differ- 
ences of  opinion  between  the  Upper  House,  which 
represented  the  rich  wool-growers  of  the  colony, 
and  the  Lower  Assembly,  which  represented  the 
lesser  wool-growers,  perhaps,  and  the  people  who 
were  not  wool-growers  at  all.  The  Upper  House, 
in  other  words,  was  a  class  chamber,  and  thus 
stood  quite  apart  from  anything  like  the  prin- 
ciple embodied  in  our  own  Senate,  which  is  no 
more  a  class  chamber  than  is  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives. 

The  prerogatives  of  the  Senate  do,  indeed, 
render  our  legislative  system  more  complex,  and 
for  that  reason  possibly  more  cumbersome,  than 
the  British  ;  for  our  Senate  can  do  more  than 
the  House  of  Lords.  It  can  not  only  question 
and  stay  the  judgment  of  the  Commons,  but 
may  always  with  perfect  safety  act  upon  its  own 
judgment  and  gainsay  the  more  popular  cham- 
ber to  the  end  of  the  longest  chapter  of  the  bit- 
terest controversy.     It  is  quite  as  free  to  act  as 


224  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

is  any  other  branch  of  the  government,  and  quite 
as  sure  to  have  its  acts  regarded.  But  there  is 
safety  and  ease  in  the  fact  that  the  Senate  never 
wishes  to  carry  its  resistance  to  the  House  to 
that  point  at  which  resistance  must  stay  all 
progress  in  legislation  ;  because  there  is  really 
a  "  latent  unity  "  between  the  Senate  and  the 
House  which  makes  continued  antagonism  be- 
tween them  next  to  impossible —  certainly  in  the 
highest  degree  improbable.  The  Senate  and 
the  House  are  of  different  origins,  but  virtually 
of  the  same  nature.  The  Senate  is  less  demo- 
cratic than  the  House,  and  consequently  less 
sensible  to  transient  phases  of  public  opinion ; 
but  it  is  no  less  sensible  than  the  House  of  its 
ultimate  accountability  to  the  people,  and  is  con- 
sequently quite  as  obedient  to  the  more  perma- 
nent and  imperative  judgments  of  the  public 
mind.  It  cannot  be  carried  so  quickly  by  every 
new  sentiment,  but  it  can  be  carried  quickly 
enough.  There  is  a  main  chance  of  election 
time  for  it  as  well  as  for  the  House  to  think 
about. 

By  the  mode  of  its  election  and  the  greater 
length  of  the  term  by  which  its  seats  are  held, 
the  Senate  is  almost  altogether  removed  from 
that  temptation  to  servile  obedience  to  the 
whims  of  popular  constituencies  to  which  the 
House  is  constantly  subject,  without  as  much 


THE  SENATE.  225 

courage  as  the  Senate  has  to  guard  its  virtue. 
But  the  men  who  compose  the  Senate  are  of  the 
same  sort  as  the  members  of  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives, and  represent  quite  as  various 
classes.  Nowadays  many  of  the  Senators  are, 
indeed,  very  rich  men,  and  there  has  come  to  be 
a  great  deal  of  talk  about  their  vast  wealth  and 
the  supposed  aristocratic  tendencies  which  it  is 
imagined  to  breed.  But  even  the  rich  Senators 
cannot  be  said  to  be  representatives  of  a  class, 
as  if  they  were  all  opulent  wool-growers  or  great 
land-owners.  Their  wealth  is  in  all  sorts  of 
stocks,  in  all  sorts  of  machinery,  in  all  sorts  of 
buildings,  in  possessions  of  all  the  sorts  possible 
in  a  land  of  bustling  commerce  and  money-mak- 
ing industries.  They  have  made  their  money  in 
a  himdred  different  ways,  or  have  inherited  it 
from  fathers  who  amassed  it  in  enterprises  too 
numerous  to  imagine ;  and  they  have  it  invested 
here,  there,  and  everywhere,  in  this,  that,  and 
everything.  Their  wealth  represents  no  class 
interests,  but  all  the  interests  of  the  commercial 
world.  It  represents  the  majority  of  the  nation, 
in  a  word  ;  and  so  they  can  probably  be  trusted 
not  to  neglect  one  set  of  interests  for  another ; 
not  to  despoil  the  trader  for  the  sake  of  the 
farmer,  or  the  farmer  for  the  sake  of  the  wool- 
grower,  or  the  wool-grower  for  the  behoof  of  the 
herder  of  short -horned  cattle.      At  least  the 

15 


226  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

Senate  is  quite  as  trustworthy  in  this  regard  as 
is  the  House  of  Representatives. 

Inasmuch  as  the  Senate  is  thus  separated  from 
class  interests  and  quite  as  representative  of  the 
nation  at  large  as  is  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, the  fact  that  it  is  less  quickly  sensitive 
to  the  hasty  or  impulsive  movements  of  public 
opinion  constitutes  its  value  as  a  check,  a  steady- 
ing weight,  in  our  very  democratic  system.  Our 
English  cousins  have  worked  out  for  themselves 
a  wonderfully  perfect  scheme  of  government  by 
gradually  making  their  monarchy  unmonarch- 
ical.  They  have  made  of  it  a  republic  steadied 
by  a  reverenced  aristocracy  and  pivoted  upon  a 
stable  throne.  And  just  as  the  English  system 
is  a  limited  monarchy  because  of  Commons  and 
Cabinet,  ours  may  be  said  to  be  a  limited  de- 
mocracy because  of  the  Senate.  This  has  in  the 
trial  of  the  scheme  proved  the  chief  value  of 
that  upper  chamber  which  was  instituted  princi- 
pally as  an  earnest  of  the  abiding  equality  and 
sovereignty  of  the  States.  At  any  rate,  this  is 
the  most  conspicuous,  and  will  prove  to  be  the 
most  lasting,  use  of  the  Senate  in  our  system. 
It  is  valuable  in  our  democracy  in  proportion  as 
it  is  undemocratic.  I  think  that  a  philosophical 
analysis  of  any  successful  and  beneficent  sj'stera 
of  self-government  will  disclose  the  fact  that  its 
only  effectual   checks  consist  in  a  mixture  of 


TEE  SENATE.  227 

elements,  in  a  combination  of  seemingly  contra- 
dictory political  principles  ;  that  the  British  gov- 
ernment is  perfect  in  proportion  as  it  is  unmo- 
narchical,  and  ours  safe  in  proportion  as  it  is 
undemocratic ;  that  the  Senate  saves  us  often 
from  headlong  popular  tyranny. 

"  The  value,  spirit,  and  essence  of  the  House 
of  Commons,"  said  Burke,  "  consists  in  its  being 
the  express  image  of  the  feelings  of  the  nation ; " 
but  the  image  of  the  nation's  feelings  should 
not  be  the  only  thing  reflected  by  the  constitu- 
tion of  a  free  government.  It  is  indispensable 
that,  besides  the  House  of  Representatives  which 
runs  on  all  fours  with  popular  sentiment,  we 
should  have  a  body  like  the  Senate  which  may 
refuse  to  run  with  it  at  all  when  it  seems  to  be 
wrong  —  a  body  which  has  time  and  security 
enough  to  keep  its  head,  if  only  now  and  then 
and  but  for  a  little  while,  till  other  people  have 
had  time  to  think.  The  Senate  is  fitted  to  do 
deliberately  and  well  the  revising  which  is  its 
properest  function,  because  its  position  as  a  rep- 
resentative of  state  sovereignty  is  one  of  emi- 
nent dignity,  securing  for  it  ready  and  sincere 
respect,  and  because  popular  demands,  ere  they 
reach  it  with  definite  and  authoritative  sugges- 
tion, are  diluted  by  passage  through  the  feelings 
and  conclusions  of  the  state  legislatures,  which 
are  the   Senate's  only  immediate   constituents. 


228  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

The  Senate  commonly  feels  with  the  House,  but 
it  does  not,  so  to  say,  feel  so  fast.  It  at  least 
has  a  chance  to  be  the  express  image  of  those 
judgments  of  the  nation  which  are  slower  and 
more  temperate  than  its  feelings. 

This  it  is  which  makes  the  Senate  "  the  most 
powerful  and  efficient  second  chamber  that  ex^ 
ists,"  ^  and  this  it  is  which  constitutes  its  func- 
tions one  of  the  effectual  checks,  one  of  the  real 
balances,  of  our  system ;  though  it  is  made  to 
seem  very  insignificant  in  the  literary  theory  of 
the  Constitution,  where  the  checks  of  state  upon 
federal  authorities,  of  executive  prerogatives 
upon  legislative  powers,  and  of  Judiciary  upon 
President  and  Congress,  though  some  of  them 
in  realit}'^  inoperative  from  the  first  and  all  of 
them  weakened  by  many  "  ifs "  and  "  buts," 
are  made  to  figure  in  the  leading  r81es,  as  the 
characteristic  Virtues,  triumphing  over  the  char- 
acteristic Vices,  of  our  new  and  original  political 
Morality-play. 

It  should,  however,  be  accounted  a  deduction 
from  the  Senate's  usefulness  that  it  is  seldom 
sure  of  more  than  two  thirds  of  itself  for  more 
than  four  years  at  a  time.  In  order  that  its  life 
may  be  perpetual,  one  third  of  its  membership  is 
renewed  or  changed  every  two  years,  each  third 

^  These  are  the  words  of  Lord  Rosebery  —  testimony  from 
the  oldest  and  most  celebrated  second  chamber  that  exists. 


THE  SENATE.  229 

taMng  its  turn  at  change  or  renewal  in  regular 
succession;  and  this  device  has,  of  course,  an 
appreciably  weakening  effect  on  the  legislative 
sinews  of  the  Senate.  Because  the  Senate  mixes 
the  parties  in  the  composition  of  its  Committees 
just  as  the  House  does,  and  those  Committees 
must,  consequently,  be  subjected  to  modification 
whenever  the  biennial  senatorial  elections  bring 
in  new  men,  freshly  promoted  from  the  House 
or  from  gubernatorial  chairs.  Places  must  be 
found  for  them  at  once  in  the  working  organiza- 
tion which  busies  itself  in  the  committee-rooms. 
Six  years  is  not  the  term  of  the  Senate,  but 
only  of  each  Senator.  Reckoning  from  any  year 
in  which  one  third  of  the  Senate  is  elected,  the 
term  of  the  majority,  —  the  two  thirds  not  af- 
fected by  the  election,  —  is  an  average  of  the  four 
and  the  two  years  which  it  has  to  live.  There 
is  never  a  time  at  which  two  thirds  of  the  Sen- 
ate have  more  than  four  years  of  appointed  ser- 
vice before  them.  And  this  constant  liability  to 
change  must,  of  course,  materially  affect  the  pol- 
icy of  the  body.  The  time  assured  it  in  which  to 
carry  out  any  enterprise  of  policy  upon  which  it 
may  embark  is  seldom  more  than  two  years,  the 
term  of  the  House.  It  may  be  checked  no  less 
effectually  than  the  lower  House  by  the  biennial 
elections,  albeit  the  changes  brought  about  in 
its  membership  are  effected^  not  directly  by  the 


230  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

people,  but  indirectly  and  more  slowly  by  tbe 
mediate  operation  of  public  opinion  tlirougb  the 
legislatures  of  the  States. 

In  estimating  the  value  of  the  Senate,  there- 
fore, as  a  branch  of  the  national  legislature,  we 
should  offset  the  committee  organization,  with 
its  denial  of  leadership  which  disintegrates  the 
Senate,  and  that  liability  to  the  biennial  infu- 
sion of  new  elements  which  may  at  any  time  in- 
terrupt the  policy  and  break  the  purpose  of  the 
Senate,  against  those  habits  of  free  and  open 
debate  which  clear  its  mind,  and  to  some  extent 
the  mind  of  the  public,  with  regard  to  the  na- 
tion's business,  doing  much  towards  making  leg- 
islation definite  and  consistent,  and  against  those 
great  additions  to  its  efficiency  which  spring 
from  its  observation  of  "  slow  and  steady  forms  " 
of  procedure,  from  the  mediate  election  which 
gives  it  independence,  and  from  its  having  a  ra- 
tional and  august  cause  for  existing. 

When  we  turn  to  consider  the  Senate  in  its 
relations  with  the  executive,  we  see  it  no  longer 
as  a  legislative  chamber,  but  as  a  consultative 
executive  council.  And  just  here  there  is  to  be 
noted  an  interesting  difference  between  the  rela- 
tions of  the  Senate  with  the  President  and  its 
relations  with  the  departments,  which  are  in  con- 
stitutional theory  one  with  the  President.  It 
deals  directly  with  the  President  in  acting  upon 


THE  SENATE.  231 

nominations  and  upon  treaties.  It  goes  into 
"  executive  session "  to  handle  without  gloves 
the  acts  of  the  chief  magistrate.  Its  dealings 
with  the  departments,  on  the  other  hand,  are, 
like  those  of  the  House,  only  indirect.  Its  legis- 
lative, not  its  executive,  function  is  the  whip 
which  coerces  the  Secretaries.  Its  will  is  the 
supreme  law  in  the  offices  of  the  government ; 
and  yet  it  orders  policy  by  no  direct  word  to  the 
departments.  It  does  not  consult  and  negotiate 
with  them  as  it  does  with  the  President,  their 
titular  head.  Its  immediate  agents,  the  Com- 
mittees, are  not  the  recognized  constitutional 
superiors  of  Secretary  A.  or  Comptroller  B. ; 
but  these  officials  cannot  move  a  finger  or  plan 
more  than  a  paltry  detail  without  looking  to  it 
that  they  render  strict  obedience  to  the  wishes 
of  these  outside,  uncommissioned,  and  irrespon- 
sible, but  none  tlie  less  authoritative  and  imper- 
ative masters. 

This  feature  of  the  Senate's  power  over  the 
executive  does  not,  however,  call  for  special  em- 
phasis here,  because  it  is  not  a  power  peculiar  to 
the  Senate,  this  overlordship  of  the  departments, 
but  one  which  it  possesses  in  common  with  the 
House  of  Representatives,  —  simply  an  innate 
and  inseparable  part  of  the  absolutism  of  a  su- 
preme legislature.  It  is  the  Senate's  position  as 
the  President's  council  in  some  great  and  many 


232  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

small  matters  which  call  for  particular  discus- 
sion. Its  general  tyranny  over  the  departments 
belongs  rather  with  what  I  am  to  say  presently 
when  looking  at  congressional  government  from 
the  stand-point  of  the  executive. 

The  greatest  consultative  privilege  of  the  Sen- 
ate, —  the  greatest  in  dignity,  at  least,  if  not  in 
effect  upon  the  interests  of  the  country, —  is  its 
right  to  a  ruling  voice  in  the  ratification  of  trea- 
ties with  foreign  powers.  I  have  already  alluded 
to  this  privilege,  for  the  purpose  of  showing 
what  weight  it  has  had  in  many  instances  in  dis- 
arranging the  ideal  balance  supposed  to  exist  be- 
tween the  powers  of  Congress  and  the  constitu- 
tional prerogatives  of  the  President ;  but  I  did 
not  then  stop  to  discuss  the  organic  reasons 
which  have  made  it  impossible  that  there  should 
be  any  real  consultation  between  the  President 
and  the  Senate  upon  such  business,  and  which 
have,  consequently,  made  disagreement  and  even 
antagonism  between  them  probable  outcomes  of 
the  system.  I  do  not  consult  the  auditor  who 
scrutinizes  my  accounts  when  I  submit  to  him 
my  books,  my  vouchers,  and  a  -written  report  of 
the  business  I  have  negotiated.  I  do  not  take 
his  advice  and  seek  his  consent ;  I  simply  ask  his 
endorsement  or  invite  his  condemnation.  I  do 
not  sue  for  his  cooperation,  but  challenge  his  crit- 
icism.    And  the  analogy  between  my  relations 


THE  SENATE.  233 

with  the  auditor  and  the  relations  of  the  Presi- 
dent with  the  Senate  is  by  no  means  remote. 
►  The  President  really  has  no  voice  at  all  in  the 
conclusions  of  the  Senate  with  reference  to  his 
diplomatic  transactions,  or*  with  reference  to  any 
of  the  matters  upon  which  he  consults  it ;  and 
yet  without  a  voice  in  the  conclusion  there  is  no 
consultation.  Argument  and  an  unobstructed 
interchange  of  views  upon  a  ground  of  absolute 
equality  are  essential  parts  of  the  substance  of 
genuine  consultation.  The  Senate,  when  it  closes 
its  doors,  upon  going  into  "  executive  session," 
closes  them  upon  the  President  as  much  as  upon 
the  rest  of  the  world.  He  cannot  meet  their  ob- 
jections to  his  courses  except  through  the  clogged 
and  inadequate  channels  of  a  written  message  or 
through  the  friendly  but  unauthoritative  offices 
of  some  Senator  who  may  volunteer  his  active 
support.  Nay,  in  many  cases  the  President  may 
not  even  know  what  the  Senate's  objections 
were.  He  is  made  to  approach  that  body  as  a 
servant  conferring  with  his  master,  and  of  course 
deferring  to  that  master.  His  only  power  of 
compelling  compliance  on  the  part  of  the  Senate 
lies  in  his  initiative  in  negotiation,  which  af- 
fords him  a  chance  to  get  the  country  into  such 
scrapes,  so  pledged  in  the  view  of  the  world  to 
certain  courses  of  action,  that  the  Senate  hesi- 
tates to  bring  about  the  appearance  of  dishonor 


284  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

which  would  follow  its  refusal  to  ratify  the  rash 
promises  or  to  support  the  indiscreet  threats  of 
the  Department  of  State. 

The  machinery  of  consultation  between  the 
Senate  and  the  President  is  of  course  the  com- 
mittee machinery.  The  Senate  sends  treaties  to 
its  Standing  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations, 
which  ponders  the  President's  messages  accom- 
panying the  treaties  and  sets  itself  to  understand 
the  situation  in  the  light  of  all  the  information 
available.  If  the  President  wishes  some  more 
satisfactory  mode  of  communication  with  the 
Senate  than  formal  message  -  writing,  his  only 
door  of  approach  is  this  Committee  on  Foreign 
Relations.  The  Secretary  of  State  may  confer 
with  its  chairman  or  with  its  more  influential 
members.  But  such  a  mode  of  conference  is 
manifestly  much  less  than  a  voice  in  the  delib- 
erations of  the  Senate  itself,  —  much  less  than 
meeting  that  body  face  to  face  in  free  consulta- 
tion and  equal  debate.  It  is  almost  as  distinctly 
dealing  with  a  foreign  power  as  were  the  nego- 
tiations preceding  the  proposed  treaty.  It  must 
predispose  the  Senate  to  the  temper  of  an  over- 
seer.^ 

1  There  seems  to  have  been  at  one  time  a  tendency  towards  a 
better  practice.  In  1813  the  Senate  sought  to  revive  the  early 
«u8tom,  in  accordance  with  which  the  President  delivered  his 
messages  in  person,  by  requesting  the  attendance  of  the  Presi- 
dent to  consult  upon  foreign  affairs ;  bat  Mr.  Madison  declined 


THE  SENATE.  235 

Still,  treaties  are  not  every-day  affairs  with 
as,  and  exceptional  business  may  create  in  Sen- 
ators an  exceptional  sense  of  responsibility,  and 
1  dispose  them  to  an  unwonted  desire  to  be  dis- 
passionate and  fair.  The  ratification  of  treaties 
is  a  much  more  serious  matter  than  the  consider- 
ation of  nominations  which  every  session  consti- 
tutes so  constant  a  diversion  from  the  more  pon- 
derous business  of  legislation.  It  is  in  dealing 
with  nominations,  however,  that  there  is  the 
most  friction  in  the  contact  between  the  Presi- 
dent and  his  overlord,  the  Senate.  One  of  the 
most  noteworthy  instances  of  the  improper  tac- 
tics which  may  arise  out  of  these  relations  was 
the  case  of  that  Mr.  Smythe,  at  the  time  Col- 
lector for  the  port  of  New  York,  whom,  in  1869, 
President  Grant  nominated  Minister  to  the  Court 
of  St.  Petersburg.  The  nomination,  as  looking 
towards  an  appointment  to  diplomatic  service, 
was  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Rela- 
tions, of  which  Mr.  Charles  Sumner  was  then 
chairman.  That  Committee  rejected  the  nomi- 
nation ;  but  Smythe  had  great  influence  at  his 
back  and  was  himself  skilled  beyond  most  men  in 
the  arts  of  the  lobby.  He  accordingly  succeeded 
in  securing  such  support  in  the  Senate  as  to  be- 
come a  very  formidable  dog  in  the  manger,  not 
himself  gaining  the  appointment,  but  for  a  time 
blocking  all  other  appointments  and  bringing 


236  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

the  business  of  the  Senate  altogether  to  a  stand- 
still, because  he  could  not.^  S  my  the  himself  is 
forgotten  ;  but  no  observer  of  the  actual  con- 
ditions of  senatorial  power  can  fail  to  see  the 
grave  import  of  the  lesson  which  his  case  teaches, 
because  his  case  was  by  no  means  an  isolated 
one.  There  have  been  scores  of  others  quite  as 
bad;  and  we  could  have  no  assurance  that  there 
might  not  in  the  future  be  hundreds  more,  had 
not  recent  movements  in  the  direction  of  a  rad- 
ical reform  of  the  civil  service  begun  to  make 
nominations  represent,  not  the  personal  prefer- 
ence of  the  President  or  the  intrigues  of  other 
people,  but  honest,  demonstrated  worth,  which 
the  Senate  is  likely  to  feel  forced  to  accept  with- 
out question,  when  the  reform  reaches  the  high- 
est grades  of  the  service. 

In  discussing  the  Senate's  connection  with  the 
civil  service  and  the  abuses  surrounding  that  con- 
nection, one  is,  therefore,  discussing  a  phase  of 
congressional  government  which  promises  soon  to 
become  obsolete.  A  consummation  devoutly  to 
be  wished !  —  and  yet  sure  when  it  comes  to  rob 
our  politics  of  a  feature  very  conspicuous  and 
very  characteristic,  and  in  a  sense  very  enter- 
taining. There  are  not  many  things  in  the  pro- 
ceedings of  Congress  which  the  people  care  to 
observe  with  any  diligence,  and  it  must  be  con- 
^  North  American  Review,  vol.  108,  p.  625. 


THE  SENATE.  237 

fessed  that  scandalous  transactions  in  the  Senate 
with  reference  to  nominations  were  among  the 
few  things  that  the  country  watched  and  talked 
about  with  keen  relish  and  interest.  This  was 
the  personal  element  which  always  had  spice  in 
it.  When  Senator  Conkling  resigned  in  a  huff 
because  he  could  not  have  whom  he  liked  in  the 
collectorship  of  the  port  of  New  York,  the  coun- 
try rubbed  its  hands  ;  and  when  the  same  impe- 
rious politician  sought  reelection  as  a  vindication 
of  that  unconstitutional  control  of  nominations 
which  masqueraded  as  "  the  courtesy  of  the  Sen- 
ate," the  country  discussed  his  chances  with  real 
zest  and  chuckled  over  the  whole  affair  in  genu- 
ine glee.  It  was  a  big  fight  worth  seeing.  It 
would  have  been  too  bad  to  miss  it. 

Before  the  sentiment  of  reform  had  become 
strong  enough  to  check  it,  this  abuse  of  the  con- 
sultative privileges  of  the  Senate  in  the  matter 
of  nominations  had  assumed  such  proportions  as 
to  seem  to  some  the  ugliest  deformity  in  our  pol- 
itics. It  looked  as  if  it  were  becoming  at  once 
the  weakest  and  the  most  tried  and  strained 
joint  of  our  federal  system.  If  there  was  to  be 
a  break,  would  it  not  be  there,  where  was  the 
severest  wear  and  tear?  The  evil  practices 
seemed  the  more  ineradicable  because  they  had 
arisen  in  the  most  natural  manner.  The  Presi 
dent  was  compelled,  as  in  the  case  of  treaties,  to 


288  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

obtain  the  sanction  of  the  Senate  without  being 
allowed  any  chance  of  consultation  with  it ;  and 
there  soon  grew  up  within  the  privacy  of  "  ex- 
ecutive session  "  an  understanding  that  the 
wishes  and  opinions  of  each  Senator  who  was 
of  the  President's  own  party  should  have  more 
weight  than  even  the  inclinations  of  the  major- 
ity in  deciding  upon  the  fitness  or  desirability 
of  persons  proposed  to  be  appointed  to  offices  in 
that  Senator's  State.  There  was  the  requisite 
privacy  to  shield  from  public  condemnation  the 
practice  arising  out  of  such  an  understanding ; 
and  the  President  himself  was  always  quite  out 
of  earshot,  hearing  only  of  results,  of  final  votes. 
All  through  the  direct  dealings  of  the  Senate 
with  the  President  there  runs  this  characteristic 
spirit  of  irresponsible  dictation.  The  President 
may  tire  the  Senate  by  dogged  persistence,  but 
he  can  never  deal  with  it  upon  a  ground  of  real 
equality.  He  has  no  real  presence  in  the  Sen- 
ate. His  power  does  not  extend  beyond  the 
most  general  suggestion.  The  Senate  always 
has  the  last  word.  No  one  would  desire  to  see 
the  President  possessed  of  authority  to  over- 
ride the  decisions  of  the  Senate,  to  treat  with 
foreign  powers,  and  appoint  thousands  of  public 
officers,  without  any  other  than  that  shadowy 
responsibility  which  he  owes  to  the  people  that 
elected  him ;  but  it  is  certainly  an  unfortunate 


THE  SENATE.  289 

feature  of  our  government  that  Congress  governs 
without  being  put  into  confidential  relations  with 
the  agents  through  whom  it  governs.  It  dictates 
to  another  branch  of  the  government  which  was 
intended  to  be  coordinate  and  coequal  with  it, 
and  over  which  it  has  no  legalized  authority  as 
of  a  master,  but  only  the  authority  of  a  bigger 
stockholder,  of  a  monopolist  indeed,  of  all  the 
energetic  prerogatives  of  the  government.  It  is 
as  if  the  Army  and  Navy  Departments  were  to 
be  made  coordinate  and  coequal,  but  the  abso- 
lute possession  and  control  of  all  ammunition 
and  other  stores  of  war  given  to  the  one  and 
denied  the  other.  The  executive  is  taken  into 
partnership  with  the  legislature  upon  a  salary 
which  may  be  withheld,  and  is  allowed  no  voice 
in  the  management  of  the  business.  It  is  simply 
charged  with  the  superintendence  of  the  em- 
ployees. 

It  was  not  essentially  different  in  the  early 
days  when  the  President  in  person  read  his  mes- 
sage to  the  Senate  and  the  House  together  as 
an  address,  and  the  Senate  in  a  body  carried  its 
reply  to  the  executive  mansion.  The  address 
was  the  formal  communication  of  an  outsider 
just  as  much  as  the  message  of  to-day  is,  and 
the  reply  of  the  Senate  was  no  less  a  formal 
document  which  it  turned  aside  from  its  regular 
business  to  prepare.    That  meeting  face  to  face 


240  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

was  not  consultation.  The  English  Parliament 
does  not  consult  with  the  sovereign  when  it  as- 
sembles to  hear  the  address  from  the  throne. 

It  would,  doubtless,  be  considered  quite  im- 
proper to  omit  from  an  essay  on  the  Senate  all 
mention  of  the  Senate's  President  ;  and  yet 
there  is  very  little  to  be  said  about  the  Vice- 
President  of  the  United  States.  His  position 
is  one  of  anomalous  insignificance  and  curious 
uncertainty.  Apparently  he  is  not,  strictly 
speaking,  a  part  of  the  legislature,  —  he  is 
clearly  not  a  member,  —  yet  neither  is  he  an 
officer  of  the  executive.  It  is  one  of  the  re- 
markable things  about  him,  that  it  is  hard  to 
find  in  sketching  the  government  any  proper 
place  to  discuss  him.  He  comes  in  most  natu- 
rally along  with  the  Senate  to  which  he  is  tacked ; 
but  he  does  not  come  in  there  for  any  great  con- 
sideration. He  is  simply  a  judicial  officer  set 
to  moderate  the  proceedings  of  an  assembly 
whose  rules  he  has  had  no  voice  in  framing  and 
can  have  no  voice  in  changing.  His  official 
Btature  is  not  to  be  compared  with  that  of  the 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  So 
long  as  he  is  Vice-President,  he  is  inseparable 
officially  from  the  Senate ;  his  importance  con- 
sists in  the  fact  that  he  may  cease  to  be  Vice- 
President.  His  chief  dignity,  next  to  presiding 
over  the  Senate,  lies  in  the  circumstance  that  he 


THE  SENATE.  241 

IS  awaiting  the  death  or  disability  of  the  Pres- 
ident. And  the  chief  embarrassment  in  discuss- 
ing his  office  is,  that  in  explaining  how  little 
there  is  to  be  said  about  it  one  has  evidently 
said  all  there  is  to  say. 


V. 

THE   EXECUTIVE. 

Every  political  constitution  in  which  different  bodies  share  the  supreme 
power  is  only  enabled  to  exist  by  the  forbearance  of  those  among  whom  this 
power  is  distributed.  —  Lord  John  Russell. 

Simplicity  and  logical  neatness  are  not  the  good  to  be  aimed  at  in  pol- 
itics, but  freedom  and  order,  with  props  against  the  pressure  of  time,  and 
arbitrary  will,  and  sudden  crises.  —  Theo.  Woolsby. 

Nothing,  indeed,  will  appear  more  certain,  on  any  tolerable  considera- 
tion of  this  matter,  than  that  every  tort  of  government  ought  to  have  iU 
admmistraiion  correspondent  to  Us  legislature.  —  Buskk. 

It  is  at  once  curious  and  instructive  to  note  how 
we  have  been  forced  into  practically  amending 
the  Constitution  without  constitutionally  amend- 
ing it.  The  legal  processes  of  constitutional 
change  are  so  slow  and  cumbersome  that  we 
have  been  constrained  to  adopt  a  serviceable 
framework  of  fictions  which  enables  us  easily  to 
preserve  the  forms  without  laboriously  obeying 
the  spirit  of  the  Constitution,  which  will  stretch 
as  the  nation  grows.  It  would  seem  that  no 
impulse  short  of  the  impulse  of  self-preservation, 
no  force  less  than  the  force  of  revolution,  can 
nowadays  be  expected  to  move  the  cumbrous 
machinery  of  formal  amendment  erected  in  Ar- 
ticle Five.     That  must  be  a  tremendous  move» 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  243 

ment  of  opinion  which  can  sway  two  thirds  of 
each  House  of  Congress  and  the  people  of  three 
fourths  of  the  States.  Mr.  Bagehot  has  pointed 
out  that  one  consequence  of  the  existence  of  this 
next  to  immovable  machinery  "  is  that  the  most 
obvious  evils  cannot  be  quickly  remedied,"  and 
"  that  a  clumsy  working  and  a  curious  techni- 
cality mark  the  politics  of  a  rough-and-ready 
people.  The  practical  arguments  and  legal  dis- 
quisitions in  America,"  continues  he,  "  are  often 
like  those  of  trustees  carrying  out  a  misdrawn 
will,  —  the  sense  of  what  they  mean  is  good,  but 
it  can  never  be  worked  out  fully  or  defended 
simply,  so  hampered  is  it  by  the  old  words  of  an 
old  testament."^  But  much  the  greater  conse- 
quence is  that  we  have  resorted,  almost  uncon- 
scious of  the  political  significance  of  what  we 
did,  to  extra-constitutional  means  of  modifying 
the  federal  system  where  it  has  proved  to  be  too 
refined  by  balances  of  divided  authority  to  suit 
practical  uses,  —  to  be  out  of  square  with  the 
main  principle  of  its  foundation,  namely,  govern- 
ment by  the  people  through  their  representatives 
in  Congress. 

Our  method  of  choosing  Presidents  is  a  nota- 
ble illustration   of  these  remarks.      The  differ- 
ence between  the  actual  and  the  constitutional 
modes  is  the  difference   between  an  ideal  non- 
1  English  Constitution,  chap,  viii.,  p.  293. 


244  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

partisan  choice  and  a  choice  made  under  party 
whips ;  the  difference  between  a  choice  made  by 
independent,  unpledged  electors  acting  apart  in 
the  States  and  a  choice  made  by  a  national  party 
convention.  Our  Executive,  no  less  than  the 
English  and  French  Executives,  is  selected  by  a 
representative,  deliberative  body,  though  in  Eng- 
land and  France  the  election  is  controlled  by  a 
permanent  legislative  chamber,  and  here  by  a 
transient  assembly  chosen  for  the  purpose  and 
dying  with  the  execution  of  that  purpose.  In 
England  the  whole  cabinet  is  practically  elective. 
The  French  Chambers  formally  elect  the  Presi- 
dent, the  titular  head  of  the  government,  and  the 
President  regards  only  the  will  of  the  Assembly 
in  appointing  the  Prime  Minister,  who  is  the 
energetic  head  of  the  government,  and  who,  in 
his  turn,  surrounds  himself  with  colleagues  who 
have  the  confidence  of  the  legislature.  And  the 
French  have  but  copied  the  English  constitution, 
which  makes  the  executive  Ministry  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  party  majority  in  the  Commons. 
With  us,  on  the  other  hand,  the  President  is 
elected  by  one  representative  body,  which  has 
nothing  to  do  with  him  after  his  election,  and 
the  cabinet  must  be  approved  by  another  repre- 
sentative body,  which  has  nothing  directly  to  do 
with  them  after  their  appointment. 
Of  course  I  do  not  mean  that  the  choice  of  a 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  245 

national  convention  is  literally  election.  The 
convention  only  nominates  a  candidate.  But 
that  candidate  is  the  only  man  for  whom  the 
electors  of  his  party  can  vote ;  and  so  the  ex- 
pression of  the  preference  of  the  convention  of 
the  dominant  party  is  practically  equivalent  to 
election,  and  might  as  well  be  called  election  by 
any  one  who  is  writing  of  broad  facts,  and  not 
of  fine  distinctions.  The  sovereign  in  England 
picks  out  the  man  who  is  to  be  Prime  Minister, 
but  he  must  pick  where  the  Commons  point;  and 
so  it  is  simpler,  as  well  as  perfectly  true,  to  say 
that  the  Commons  elect  the  Prime  Minister. 
My  agent  does  not  select  the  particular  horse 
I  instruct  him  to  buy.  This  is  just  the  plain 
fact,  —  that  the  electors  are  the  agents  of  the 
national  conventions ;  and  this  fact  constitutes 
more  than  an  amendment  of  that  original  plan 
which  would  have  had  all  the  electors  to  be  what 
the  first  electors  actually  were,  trustworthy  men 
given  carte  hlanche  to  vote  for  whom  they  pleased, 
casting  their  ballots  in  thirteen  state  capitals  in 
the  hope  that  they  would  happen  upon  a  majority 
agreement. 

It  is  worth  while,  too,  to  notice  another 
peculiarity  of  this  elective  system.  There  is  a 
thorough-going  minority  representation  in  the  as- 
semblies which  govern  our  elections.  Across  the 
ocean  a  Liberal  Prime  Minister  is  selected  by 


246  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

the  representatives  only  of  those  Liberals  who 
live  in  Liberal  constituencies ;  those  who  live  else- 
where in  a  helpless  minority,  in  a  Conservativt 
district,  having  of  course  no  voice  in  the  selec 
tion.  A  Conservative  Premier,  in  like  manner. 
owes  nothing  to  those  Conservatives  who  were 
unable  to  return  a  member  to  Parliament.  So 
far  as  he  is  concerned,  they  count  for  Liberals, 
since  their  representative  in  the  Commons  is  a 
Liberal.  The  parliaments  which  select  our  Pres- 
idents, on  the  contrary,  are,  each  of  them,  all  of 
a  kind.  No  state  district  can  have  so  few  Repub- 
licans in  it  as  not  to  be  entitled  to  a  representa- 
tive in  the  national  Republican  convention  equal 
to  that  of  the  most  unanimously  Republican  dis- 
trict in  the  country ;  and  a  Republican  State  is 
accorded  as  full  a  representation  in  a  Democratic 
convention  as  is  the  most  Democratic  of  her  sister 
States. 

We  had  to  pass  through  several  stages  of 
development  before  the  present  system  of  elec- 
tion by  convention  was  reached.  At  the  first 
two  presidential  elections  the  electors  were  left 
free  to  vote  as  their  consciences  and  the  Constitu- 
tion bade  them ;  for  the  Constitution  bade  them 
vote  as  they  deemed  best,  and  it  did  not  require 
much  discretion  to  vote  for  General  Washingion. 
But  when  General  Washington  was  out  of  the 
race,  and  new  parties  began  to  dispute  the  field 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  247 

with  the  Federalists,  party  managers  could  not 
help  feeling  anxious  about  the  votes  of  the 
electors,  and  some  of  those  named  to  choose  the 
second  President  were,  accordingly,  pledged  be- 
forehand to  vote  thus  and  so.  After  the  third 
presidential  election  there  began  to  be  congres- 
sional oversight  of  the  matter.  From  1800  to 
1824  there  was  an  unbroken  succession  of  cau- 
cuses of  the  Republican  members  of  Congress  to 
direct  the  action  of  the  party  electors ;  and  nom- 
ination by  caucus  died  only  when  the  Republican 
party  became  virtually  the  only  party  worth  reck- 
oning with,  —  the  only  party  for  whom  nomina- 
tion was  worth  while,  —  and  then  public  opinion 
began  to  cry  out  against  such  secret  direction  of 
the  monopoly.  In  1796  the  Federalist  congress- 
men had  held  an  informal  caucus  to  ascertain 
their  minds  as  to  the  approaching  election ;  but 
after  that  they  refrained  from  further  experi- 
ment in  the  same  direction,  and  contented  them- 
selves with  now  and  then  a  sort  of  convention 
until  they  had  no  party  to  convene.  In  1828 
there  was  a  sort  of  dropping  fire  of  nominations 
from  state  legislatures ;  and  in  1832  sat  the  first 
of  the  great  national  nominating  conventions. 

There  was,  therefore,  one  form  of  congres- 
Bional  government  which  did  not  succeed.  It  was 
a  very  logical  mode  of  party  government,  that  of 
uominating  the  chief  magistrate  by  congressional 


248  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

caucus,  but  it  was  not  an  open  enough  way.  The 
French  chamber  does  not  select  premiers  by  shut- 
ting up  the  members  of  its  majority  in  caucus. 
Neither  does  the  House  of  Commons.  Their 
selection  is  made  by  long  and  open  trial,  in  de- 
bate and  in  business  management,  of  the  men  in 
whom  they  discover  most  tact  for  leading  and 
most  skill  for  planning,  as  well  as  most  power 
for  ruling.  They  do  not  say,  by  vote,  give  us 
M.  Ferry,  give  us  Mr.  Gladstone ;  but  Her 
Majesty  knows  as  well  as  her  subjects  know  that 
Mr.  Gladstone  is  the  only  man  whom  the  Liberal 
majority  will  obey ;  and  President  Gr^vy  per- 
ceives that  M.  Ferry  is  the  only  man  whom  the 
Chambers  can  be  made  to  follow.  Each  has 
elected  himself  by  winning  the  first  place  in  his 
party.  The  election  has  openly  progressed  for 
years,  and  is  quite  different  from  the  private 
vote  of  a  caucus  about  an  outsider  who  is  to  sit, 
not  in  Congress,  but  in  the  executive  mansion ; 
who  is  not  their  man,  but  the  people's. 

Nor  would  nominations  by  state  legislatures 
answer  any  rational  purpose.  Of  course  every 
State  had,  or  thought  she  had,  —  which  is  much 
the  same  thing,  —  some  citizen  worthy  to  become 
President;  and  it  would  have  been  confusion 
worse  confounded  to  have  had  as  many  candi- 
dates as  there  might  be  States.  So  universal  a 
competition  between  "favorite  sons"  would  have 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  249 

thrown  the  election  into  the  House  of  Represen- 
tatives so  regularly  as  to  replace  the  nominating 
caucus  by  an  electing  caucus. 

The  virtual  election  of  the  cabinet,  the  real 
executive,  or  at  least  the  Prime  Minister,  the 
real  head  of  the  executive,  by  the  Commons  in 
England,  furnishes  us  with  a  contrast  rather  than 
with  a  parallel  to  the  election  of  our  premier, 
the  head  of  our  executive,  by  a  deliberative,  rep- 
resentative body,  because  of  the  difference  of 
function  and  of  tenure  between  our  Presidents 
and  English  Prime  Ministers.  William  Pitt 
was  elected  to  rule  the  House  of  Commons,  John 
Adams  to  hold  a  constitutional  balance  against 
the  Houses  of  Congress.  The  one  was  the  leader 
of  the  legislature ;  the  other,  so  to  say,  the  col- 
league of  the  legislature.  Besides,  the  Commons 
can  not  only  make  but  also  immake  Ministries  ; 
whilst  conventions  can  do  nothing  but  bind  their 
parties  by  nomination,  and  nothing  short  of  a 
well-nigh  impossible  impeachment  can  unmake 
a  President,  except  four  successions  of  the  sea- 
sons. As  has  been  very  happily  said  by  a  shrewd 
critic,  our  system  is  essentially  astronomical.  A 
President's  usefulness  is  measured,  not  by  effi- 
ciency, but  by  calendar  months.  It  is  reckoned 
that  if  he  be  good  at  all  he  will  be  good  for 
four  years.  A  Prime  Minister  must  keep  him- 
self in  favor  with  the  majority,  a  President  need 
only  keep  alive. 


250  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

Once  the  functions  of  a  presidential  elector 
were  very  august.  He  was  to  speak  for  the 
people ;  they  were  to  accept  his  judgment  as 
theirs.  He  was  to  be  as  eminent  in  the  qualities 
which  win  trust  as  was  the  greatest  of  the  Impe- 
rial Electors  in  the  power  which  inspires  fear. 
But  now  he  is  merely  a  registering  machine,  —  a 
sort  of  bell-ptmch  to  the  hand  of  his  party  con- 
vention. It  gives  the  pressure,  and  he  rings. 
It  is,  therefore,  patent  to  every  one  that  that 
portion  of  the  Constitution  which  prescribes  his 
functions  is  as  though  it  were  not.  A  very  sim- 
ple and  natural  process  of  party  organization, 
taking  form  first  in  congressional  caucuses  and 
later  in  nominating  conventions,  has  radically 
altered  a  Constitution  which  declares  that  it  can 
be  amended  only  by  the  concurrence  of  two 
thirds  of  Congress  and  three  fourths  of  the 
States.  The  sagacious  men  of  the  constitu- 
tional convention  of  1787  certainly  expected 
their  work  to  be  altered,  but  can  hardly  have 
expected  it  to  be  changed  in  so  informal  a 
manner. 

The  conditions  which  determine  the  choice  of 
a  nominating  convention  which  names  a  Presi- 
dent are  radically  different  from  the  conditions 
which  facilitate  the  choice  of  a  representative 
chamber  which  selects  for  itself  a  Prime  Minis- 
ter.    "  Among  the  great  purposes  of  a  national 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  'Abl 

parliament  are  these  two,"  says  Mr.  Parton  :  ^ 
"  first,  to  train  men  for  practical  statesmanship ; 
and  secondly,  to  exhibit  them  to  the  country,  so 
that,  when  men  of  ability  are  wanted,  they  can 
be  found  without  anxious  search  and  perilous 
trial."  In  those  governments  which  are  admin- 
istered by  an  executive  committee  of  the  legis- 
lative body,  not  only  this  training  but  also  this 
exhibition  is  constant  and  complete.  The  career 
which  leads  to  cabinet  office  is  a  career  of  self- 
exhibition.  The  seK-revelation  is  made  in  de- 
bate, and  so  is  made  to  the  nation  at  large  as 
well  as  to  the  Ministry  of  the  day,  who  are  look- 
ing out  for  able  recruits,  and  to  the  Commons, 
whose  ear  is  quick  to  tell  a  voice  which  it  will 
consent  to  hear,  a  knowledge  which  it  will  pause 
to  heed.  But  in  governments  like  our  own,  in 
which  legislative  and  executive  services  are  alto- 
gether dissociated,  this  training  is  incomplete, 
and  this  exhibition  almost  entirely  wanting.  A 
nominating  convention  does  not  look  over  the 
rolls  of  Congress  to  pick  a  man  to  suit  its  pur- 
pose ;  and  if  it  did  it  could  not  find  him,  because 
Congress  is  not  a  school  for  the  preparation  of 
administrators,  and  the  convention  is  supposed 
to  be  searching  not  for  an  experienced  commit- 
teeman, but  for  a  tried  statesman.  The  proper 
test  for  its  application  is  not  the  test  by  which 
1  Atlantic  MotUhltf,  vol.  xxv.,  p.  148. 


252  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

congressmen  are  assayed.  They  make  laws,  but 
they  do  not  have  to  order  the  execution  of  the 
laws  they  make.  They  have  a  great  deal  of  ex- 
perience in  directing,  but  none  at  all  in  being 
directed.  Their  care  is  to  pass  bills,  not  to 
keep  them  in  running  order  after  they  have  be- 
come statutes.  They  spend  their  lives  without 
having  anything  to  do  directly  with  administra- 
tion, though  administration  is  dependent  uppn 
the  measures  which  they  enact. 

A  Presidential  convention,  therefore,  when  it 
nominates  a  man  who  is,  or  has  been,  a  member 
of  Congress,  does  not  nominate  him  because  of 
his  congressional  experience,  but  because  it  is 
thought  that  he  has  other  abilities  which  were 
not  called  out  in  Congress.  Andrew  Jackson 
had  been  a  member  of  Congress,  but  he  was 
chosen  President  because  he  had  won  the  battle 
of  New  Orleans  and  had  driven  the  Indians  from 
Florida.  It  was  thought  that  his  military  genius 
evinced  executive  genius.  The  men  whose  fame 
rests  altogether  upon  laurels  won  in  Congress 
have  seldom  been  more  successful  than  Webster 
and  Henry  Clay  in  their  candidacy  for  the  chief 
magistracy.  Washington  was  a  soldier  ;  Jeffer- 
son cut  but  a  sorry  figure  in  debate ;  Monroe 
was  a  diplomatist ;  it  required  diligent  inquiry 
to  find  out  what  many  of  our  Presidents  had 
been  before  they  became  candidates ;  and  emi« 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  253 

nency  in  legislative  service  has  always  been  at 
best  but  an  uncertain  road  to  official  preferment. 
Of  late  years  a  tendency  is  observable  which 
seems  to  be  making  the  gubernatorial  chairs  of 
the  greater  States  the  nearest  offices  to  the  Pres- 
idency ;  and  it  cannot  but  be  allowed  that  there 
is  much  that  is  rational  in  the  tendency.  The 
governorship  of  a  State  is  very  like  a  smaller 
Presidency ;  or,  rather,  the  Presidency  is  very 
like  a  big  governorship.  Training  in  the  duties 
of  the  one  fits  for  the  duties  of  the  other.  This 
is  the  only  avenue  of  subordinate  place  through 
which  the  highest  place  can  be  naturally  reached. 
Under  the  cabinet  governments  abroad  a  still 
more  natural  line  of  promotion  is  arranged.  The 
Ministry  is  a  legislative  Ministry,  and  draws  its 
life  from  the  legislature,  where  strong  talents 
always  secure  executive  place.  A  long  career  in 
Parliament  is  at  least  a  long  contact  with  prac- 
tical statesmanship,  and  at  best  a  long  schooling 
in  the  duties  of  the  practical  statesman.  But 
with  us  there  is  no  such  intimate  relationship 
between  legislative  and  executive  service.  From 
experience  in  state  administration  to  trial  in  the 
larger  sphere  of  federal  administration  is  the 
only  natural  order  of  promotion.  We  ought, 
therefore,  to  hail  the  recognition  of  this  fact  as 
in  keeping  with  the  general  plan  of  the  federal 
Constitution.      The  business  of  the  President, 


254  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

occasionally  great,  is  usually  not  much  above 
routine.  Most  of  the  time  it  is  mere  adminis- 
tration, mere  obedience  of  directions  from  the 
masters  of  policy,  the  Standing  Committees. 
Except  in  so  far  as  his  power  of  veto  cousti- 
tutes  him  a  part  of  the  legislature,  the  Presi- 
dent might,  not  inconveniently,  be  a  permanent 
officer ;  the  first  official  of  a  carefully-graded 
and  impartially  regulated  civil  service  system, 
through  whose  sure  series  of  merit-promotions 
the  youngest  clerk  might  rise  even  to  the  chief 
magistracy.^  He  is  part  of  the  official  rather 
than  of  the  political  machinery  of  the  govern- 
ment, and  his  duties  call  rather  for  training 
than  for  constructive  genius.  If  there  can  be 
found  in  the  official  systems  of  the  States  a 
lower  grade  of  service  in  which  men  may  be  ad- 
vantageously drilled  for  Presidential  functions, 
so  much  the  better.  The  States  will  have  bet- 
ter governors,  the  Union  better  Presidents,  and 
there  will  have  been  supplied  one  of  the  most 
serious  needs  left  unsupplied  hy  the  Constitu- 
tion, —  the  need  for  a  proper  school  in  which  to 
rear  federal  administrators. 

Administration   is  something  that  men  must 
learn,  not   something  to  skill  in  which  they  are 

1  Something  like  this  has  heen  actually  proposed  by  Mr. 
Albert  Stickney,  in  his  interesting  and  incisive  essay,  A  True. 
Republic. 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  255 

bom.  Americans  take  to  business  of  all  kinds 
more  naturally  than  any  other  nation  ever  did, 
and  the  executive  duties  of  government  consti- 
tute just  an  exalted  kind  of  business  ;  but  even 
Americans  are  not  Presidents  in  their  cradles. 
One  cannot  have  too  much  preparatory  train- 
ing and  experience  who  is  to  fill  so  high  a  mag- 
istracy. It  is  difficult  to  perceive,  therefore, 
upon  what  safe  ground  of  reason  are  built  the 
opinions  of  those  persons  who  regard  short  terms 
of  service  as  sacredly  and  peculiarly  republican 
in  principle.  If  republicanism  is  founded  upon 
good  sense,  nothing  so  far  removed  from  good 
sense  can  be  part  and  parcel  of  it.  Efficiency 
is  the  only  just  foundation  for  confidence  in  a 
public  officer,  under  republican  institutions  no 
less  than  under  monarchs  ;  and  short  terms  which 
cut  off  the  efficient  as  surely  and  inexorably  as 
the  inefficient  are  quite  as  repugnant  to  republi- 
can as  to  monarchical  rules  of  wisdom.  Unhap- 
pily, however,  this  is  not  American  doctrine. 
A  President  is  dismissed  almost  as  soon  as  he 
has  learned  the  duties  of  his  office,  and  a  man 
who  has  served  a  dozen  terms  in  Congress  is  a 
cariosity.  We  are  too  apt  to  think  both  the 
work  of  legislation  and  the  work  of  administra- 
tion easy  enough  to  be  done  readily,  with  or 
without  preparation,  by  any  man  of  discretion 
and  character.     No  one  imagines  that  the  dry- 


266  CONGRESSIONAL    GOVERNMENT. 

goods  or  the  hardware  trade,  or  even  the  cob- 
bler's craft,  can  be  successfully  conducted  except 
by  those  who  have  worked  through  a  laborious 
and  unremunerative  apprenticeship,  and  who 
have  devoted  their  lives  to  perfecting  themselves 
as  tradesmen  or  as  menders  of  shoes.  But  legis- 
lation is  esteemed  a  thing  which  may  be  taken 
up  with  success  by  any  shrewd  man  of  middle 
age,  which  a  lawyer  may  now  and  again  advan- 
tageously combine  with  his  practice,  or  of  which 
any  intelligent  youth  may  easily  catch  the  knack ; 
and  administration  is  regarded  as  something 
which  an  old  soldier,  an  ex-diplomatist,  or  a  pop- 
ular politician  may  be  trusted  to  take  to  by  in- 
stinct. No  man  of  tolerable  talents  need  despair 
of  having  been  born  a  Presidential  candidate. 

These  must  be  pronounced  very  extraordinary 
conclusions  for  an  eminently  practical  people  to 
have  accepted  ;  and  it  must  be  received  as  an 
awakening  of  good  sense  that  there  is  nowadays 
a  decided  inclination  manifested  on  the  part  of 
the  nation  to  supply  training-schools  for  the 
Presidency  in  like  minor  offices,  such  as  the  gov- 
ernorships of  the  greater  States.  For  the  sort 
of  Presidents  needed  under  the  present  arrange- 
ment of  our  federal  government,  it  is  best  to 
choose  amongst  the  ablest  and  most  experienced 
state  governors. 

So  much  for  nomination  and  election.     But, 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  257 

after  election,  what  then  ?  The  President  is  not 
all  of  the  Executive.  He  cannot  get  along  with- 
out the  men  whom  he  appoints,  with  and  by  the 
consent  and  advice  of  the  Senate  ;  and  they  are 
really  integral  parts  of  that  branch  of  the  gov- 
ernment which  he  titularly  contains  in  his  one 
single  person.  The  characters  and  training  of 
the  Secretaries  are  of  almost  as  much  importance 
as  his  own  gifts  and  antecedents  ;  so  that  his 
appointment  and  the  Senate's  confirmation  must 
be  added  to  the  machinery  of  nomination  by 
convention  and  election  by  automatic  electors 
before  the  whole  process  of  making  up  a  work- 
ing executive  has  been  noted.  The  early  Con- 
gresses seem  to  have  regarded  the  Attorney-Gen- 
eral and  the  four  Secretaries  ^  who  constituted 
the  first  Cabinets  as  something  more  than  the 
President's  lieutenants.  Before  the  republican 
reaction  which  followed  the  supremacy  of  the 
Federalists,  the  heads  of  the  departments  ap- 
peared in  person  before  the  Houses  to  impart 
desired  information,  and  to  make  what  sugges- 
tions they  might  have  to  venture,  just  as  the 
President  attended  in  person  to  read  his  "  ad- 
dress." They  were  always  recognized  units  in 
the  system,  never  mere  ciphers  to  the  Presiden- 
tial figure  which  led  them.  Their  wills  counted 
as  independent  wills. 

1  State,  Treasury,  War,  Navy. 
17 


258  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

The  limits  of  this  independence  would  seem, 
however,  never  to  have  been  very  clearly  defined. 
Whether  or  not  the  President  was  to  take  the 
advice  of  his  appointees  and  colleagues  appears 
to  have  depended  always  upon  the  character  and 
temper  of  the  President.  Here,  for  example,  is 
what  was  reported  in  1862.  "  We  pretend  to 
no  state  secrets,"  said  the  New  York  "  Evening 
Post,"  ^  "  but  we  have  been  told,  upon  what  we 
deem  good  authority,  that  no  such  thing  as  a 
combined,  unitary,  deliberative  administration 
exists ;  that  the  President's  brave  willingness  to 
take  all  responsibility  has  quite  neutralized  the 
idea  of  a  joint  responsibility ;  and  that  orders 
of  the  highest  importance  are  issued,  and  move- 
ments commanded,  which  cabinet  officers  learn 
of  as  other  people  do,  or,  what  is  worse,  which 
the  cabinet  officers  disapprove  and  protest 
against.  Each  cabinet  officer,  again,  controls 
his  own  department  pretty  much  as  he  pleases, 
without  consultation  with  the  President  or  with 
his  coadjutors,  and  often  in  the  face  of  determi- 
nations which  have  been  reached  by  the  others." 
A  picture  this  which  forcibly  reminds  one  of  a 
certain  imperious  Prime  Minister,  in  his  last 
days  created  Earl  of  Chatham.  These  reports 
may  have  been  true  or  they  may  have  been  mere 
rumors;  but  they  depict  a  perfectly  possible 
1  As  quoted  in  Macmillan'3  Magazine,  vol.  vii.,  p.  67.     _, 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  259 

state  of  affairs.  There  is  no  influence  except  the 
ascendency  or  tact  of  the  President  himself  to 
keep  a  Cabinet  in  harmony  and  to  dispose  it 
to  cooperation ;  so  that  it  would  be  very  difficult 
to  lay  down  any  rules  as  to  what  elements  really 
constitute  an  Executive.  Those  elements  can  be 
determined  exactly  of  only  one  administration 
at  a  time,  and  of  that  only  after  it  has  closed, 
and  some  one  who  knows  its  secrets  has  come 
forward  to  tell  them.  We  think  of  Mr.  Lincoln 
rather  than  of  his  Secretaries  when  we  look  back 
to  the  policy  of  the  war-time ;  but  we  think  of 
Mr.  Hamilton  rather  than  of  President  Wash- 
ington when  we  look  back  to  the  policy  of  the 
first  administration.  Daniel  Webster  was  bigger 
than  President  Fillmore,  aad  President  Jackson 
was  bigger  than  Mr.  Secretary  Van  Buren.  It 
depends  for  the  most  part  upon  the  character 
and  training,  the  previous  station,  of  the  cabinet 
officers,  whether  or  not  they  act  as  governing 
factors  in  administration,  just  as  it  depends  upon 
the  President's  talents  and  preparatory  school- 
ing whether  or  not  he  is  a  mere  figure-head.  A 
weak  President  may  prove  himself  wiser  than 
the  convention  which  nominated  him,  by  over- 
shadowing himself  with  a  Cabinet  of  notables. 

From  the  necessity  of  the  case,  however,  the 
President  cannot  often  be  really  supreme  in  mat- 
ters of  administration,  except  as  the  Speaker  of 


260  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

the  House  of  Representatives  is  supreme  in  leg- 
islation, as  appointer  of  those  who  are  supreme 
in  its  several  departments.  The  President  is  no 
greater  than  his  prerogative  of  veto  makes  him  ; 
he  is,  in  other  words,  powerful  rather  as  a  branch 
of  the  legislature  than  as  the  titular  head  of  the 
Executive.  Almost  all  distinctively  executive 
fimctions  are  specifically  bestowed  upon  the 
heads  of  the  departments.  No  President,  how- 
ever earnest  and  industrious,  can  keep  the  Navy 
in  a  state  of  creditable  efficiency  if  he  have  a 
corrupt  or  incapable  Secretary  in  the  Navy  De- 
partment ;  he  cannot  prevent  the  army  from  suf- 
fering the  damage  of  demoralization  if  the  Secre- 
tary of  War  is  without  either  ability,  experience, 
or  conscience  ;  there  will  be  corrupt  jobs  in  the 
Department  of  Justice,  do  what  he  will  to  correct 
the  methods  of  a  deceived  or  deceitful  Attorney- 
General  ;  he  cannot  secure  even-handed  equity 
for  the  Indian  tribes  if  the  Secretary  of  the  In- 
terior chooses  to  thwart  him ;  and  the  Secretary 
of  State  may  do  as  much  mischief  behind  his 
back  as  can  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  He 
might  master  the  details  and  so  control  the  ad- 
ministration of  some  one  of  the  departments,  but 
he  can  scarcely  oversee  them  all  with  any  degree 
of  strictness.  His  knowledge  of  what  they  have 
done  or  are  doing  comes,  of  course,  from  the  Sec 
retaries  themselves,  and  his  annual  messages  to 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  261 

Congress  are  in  large  part  but  a  recapitulation 
of  the  chief  contents  of  the  detailed  reports 
which  the  heads  of  the  departments  themselves 
submit  at  the  same  time  to  the  Houses. 

It  is  easy,  however,  to  exaggerate  the  power 
of  the  Cabinet.  After  all  has  been  said,  it  is 
evident  that  they  differ  from  the  permanent  offi- 
cials only  in  not  being  permanent.  Their  tenure 
of  office  is  made  to  depend  upon  the  supposition 
that  their  functions  are  political  rather  than  sim- 
ply ministerial,  independent  rather  than  merely 
instrumental.  They  are  made  party  represen- 
tatives because  of  the  fiction  that  they  direct 
policy.  In  reality  the  First  Comptroller  of 
the  Treasury  has  almost,  if  not  quite,  as  much 
weight  in  directing  departmental  business  as  has 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  himself,  and  it 
would  practically  be  quite  as  useful  to  have  his 
office,  which  is  in  intention  permanent,  vacated 
by  every  change  of  administration  as  to  have 
that  rule  with  regard  to  the  office  of  his  official 
chief.  The  permanent  organization,  the  clerical 
forces  of  the  departments,  have  in  the  Secreta- 
ries a  sort  of  sliding  top  ;  though  it  would  prob- 
ably be  just  as  convenient  in  practice  to  have 
this  lid  permanent  as  to  have  it  movable.  That 
the  Secretaries  are  not  in  fact  the  directors  of 
the  executive  policy  of  the  government,  I  have 
shown  in  pointing  out  the  thorough-going  super* 


262  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

vision  of  even  the  details  of  administration  which 
it  is  the  disposition  of  the  Standing  Committees 
of  Congress  to  exercise.  In  the  actual  control 
of  affairs  no  one  can  do  very  much  without  gain- 
ing the  ears  of  the  Committees.  The  heads  of 
the  departments  could,  of  course,  act  much  more 
wisely  in  many  matters  than  the  Committees 
can,  because  they  have  an  intimacy  with  the 
workings  and  the  wants  of  those  departments 
which  no  Committee  can  possibly  possess.  But 
Committees  prefer  to  govern  in  the  dark  rather 
than  not  to  govern  at  all,  and  the  Secretaries,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  find  themselves  bound  in  all 
things  larger  than  routine  details  by  laws  which 
have  been  made  for  them  and  which  they  have 
no  legitimate  means  of  modifying. 

Of  course  the  Secretaries  are  in  the  leading- 
strings  of  statutes,  and  all  their  duties  look  to- 
wards a  strict  obedience  to  Congress.  Congress 
made  them  and  can  unmake  them.  It  is  to  Con- 
gress that  they  must  render  account  for  the  con- 
duct of  administration.  The  head  of  each  de- 
partment must  every  year  make  a  detailed  report 
of  the  expenditures  of  the  department,  and  a 
minute  account  of  the  facilities  of  work  and  the 
division  of  functions  in  the  department,  naming 
each  clerk  of  its  force.  The  chief  duties  of  one 
cabinet  officer  will  serve  to  illustrate  the  chief 
duties  of  his  colleagues.     It  is  the  duty  of  the 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  263 

Secretary  of  the  Treasury  ^  "  to  prepare  plans 
for  the  improvement  and  management  of  the 
revenue  and  for  the  support  of  the  public  credit ; 
to  prescribe  forms  of  keeping  and  rendering  aU 
public  accounts  ;  to  grant  all  warrants  for  mon- 
eys to  be  issued  from  the  Treasury  in  pursuance 
of  appropriations  made  by  Congress  ;  to  report 
to  the  Senate  or  House,  in  person  or  in  writ- 
ing, information  required  by  them  pertaining  to 
his  office ;  and  to  perform  all  duties  relating  to 
finance  that  he  shall  be  directed  to  perform." 
"  He  is  required  to  report  to  Congress  annually, 
on  the  first  Monday  in  June,  the  results  of  the 
information  compiled  by  the  Bureau  of  Statis- 
tics, showing  the  condition  of  manufactures,  do- 
mestic trade,  currency,  and  banks  in  the  sev- 
eral States  and  Territories."  "  He  prescribes 
regulations  for  the  killing  in  Alaska  Territory 
and  adjacent  waters  of  minks,  martens,  sable, 
and  other  fur-bearing  animals."  "  And  he  must 
lay  before  Congress  each  session  the  reports  of 
the  Auditors,  showing  the  applications  of  the 
appropriations  made  for  the  War  and  Navy 
Departments,  and  also  abstracts  and  tabulated 
forms  showing  separate  accounts  of  the  moneys 
received  from  internal  duties." 

Of  course  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that 

1 1  quote  from  an  excellent  handbook,  The  United  Statei 
Government,  by  Lampbere. 


264  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

a  Secretary  who  has  within  his  choice  some  of 
the  minor  plans  for  the  management  of  the  rev- 
enue and  for  the  maintenance  of  the  public 
credit  should  be  carefully  chosen  from  amongst 
men  skilled  in  financial  administration  and  expe- 
rienced in  business  regulation ;  but  it  is  no  more 
necessary  that  the  man  selected  for  such  respon- 
sible duties  should  be  an  active  politician,  called 
to  preside  over  his  department  only  so  long  as 
the  President  who  appointed  him  continues  to 
hold  office  and  to  like  him,  than  it  is  to  have  a 
strictly  political  officer  to  fulfill  his  other  duty 
of  prescribing  game  laws  for  Alaska  and  Alaskan 
waters.  Fur-bearing  animals  can  have  no  con- 
nection with  political  parties,  —  except,  perhaps, 
as  "spoils."  Indeed,  it  is  a  positive  disadvan- 
tage that  Mr.  Secretary  should  be  chosen  upon 
such  a  principle.  He  cannot  have  the  knowl- 
edge, and  must  therefore  lack  the  efficiency,  of 
a  permanent  official  separated  from  the  partisan 
conflicts  of  politics  and  advanced  to  the  highest 
office  of  his  department  by  a  regular  series  of 
promotions  won  by  long  service.  The  general 
policy  of  the  government  in  matters  of  finance, 
everything  that  affects  the  greater  operations  of 
the  Treasury,  depends  upon  legislation,  and  is 
altosrether  in  the  hands  of  the  Committees  of 
Ways  and  Means  and  of  Finance ;  so  that  it  is 
entirely  apart  from  good  sense  to  make  an  es- 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  265 

sentially  political  office  out  of  the  post  of  that 
officer  who  controls  only  administrative  details. 

And  this  remark  would  seem  to  apply  with 
still  greater  force  to  the  offices  of  the  other  Sec- 
retaries. They  have  even  less  energetic  scope 
than  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  has.  There 
must  under  any  system  be  considerable  power  in 
the  hands  of  the  officer  who  handles  and  dis- 
penses vast  revenues,  even  though  he  handle  and 
dispense  them  as  directed  by  his  employers. 
Money  in  its  goings  to  and  fro  makes  various 
mares  go  by  the  way,  so  to  speak.  It  cannot 
move  in  great  quantities  without  moving  a  large 
part  of  the  commercial  world  with  it.  Manage- 
ment even  of  financial  details  may  be  made  in- 
strumental in  turning  the  money-markets  upside 
down.  The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  is,  there- 
fore, less  a  mere  chief  clerk  than  are  his  coadju- 
tors ;  and  if  his  duties  are  not  properly  political, 
theirs  certainly  are  not. 

In  view  of  this  peculiarity  of  the  Secretaries, 
in  being  appointed  as  partisans  and  endowed  as 
mere  officials,  it  is  interesting  to  inquire  what 
and  whom  they  represent.  They  are  clearly 
meant  to  represent  the  political  party  to  which 
they  belong ;  but  it  very  often  hajjpens  that  it  is 
impossible  for  them  to  do  so.  They  must  some- 
times obey  the  opposite  party.  It  is  our  habit 
to  speak  of  the  party  to  which  the  President  is 


266  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

known  to  adhere  and  which  has  control  of  ap- 
pointments to  the  offices  of  the  civil  service  as 
"  the  party  in  power ; "  but  it  is  very  evident 
that  control  of  the  executive  matihinery  is  not 
all  or  even  a  very  large^part  of  power  in  a  coun- 
try ruled  as  ours  is.  In  so  far  as  the  President 
is  an  executive  officer  he  is  the  servant  of  Con- 
gress ;  and  the  members  of  the  Cabinet,  being 
confined  to  executive  functions,  are  altogether 
the  servants  of  Congress.  The  President,  how- 
ever, besides  being  titular  head  of  the  executive 
service,  is  to  the  extent  of  his  veto  a  third  branch 
of  the  legislature,  and  the  party  which  he  rep- 
resents is  in  power  in  the  same  sense  that  it 
would  be  in  power  if  it  had  on  its  side  a  major- 
ity of  the  members  of  either  of  the  other  two 
branches  of  Congress.  If  the  House  and  Sen- 
ate are  of  one  party  and  the  President  and  his 
ministers  of  the  opposite,  the  President's  party 
can  hardly  be  said  to  be  in  power  beyond  the 
hindering  and  thwarting  faculty  of  the  veto. 
The  Democrats  were  in  power  during  the  ses- 
sions of  the  Twenty-fifth  Congress  because  they 
had  a  majority  in  the  Senate  as  well  as  Andrew 
Jackson  in  the  White  House  ;  but  later  Presi- 
dents have  had  both  House  and  Senate  against 
them.^ 

^  "  In  America  the  President  cannot  prevent  any  law  from 
teing  passed,  nor  can  he  evade  the  obligation  of  enforcing  it 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  26T 

It  is  this  constant  possibility  of  party  diver- 
sity between  the  Executive  and  Congress  which 
so  much  complicates  our  system  of  party  govern- 
ment. The  history  of  administrations  is  not 
necessarily  the  history  of  parties.  Presidential 
elections  may  turn  the  scale  of  party  ascendency 
one  way,  and  the  intermediate  congressional 
elections  may  quite  reverse  the  balance.  A 
strong  party  administration,  by  which  the  en- 
ergy of  the  State  is  concentrated  in  the  hands 
of  a  single  well-recognized  political  organization, 
which  is  by  reason  of  its  power  saddled  with  all 
responsibility,  may  sometimes  be  possible,  but  it 
must  often  be  impossible.  We  are  thus  shut 
out  in  part  from  real  party  government  such  as 
we  desire,  and  such  as  it  is  unquestionably  de- 
sirable to  set  up  in  every  system  like  ours. 
Party  government  can  exist  only  when  the  ab- 
solute control  of  administration,  the  appoint- 
ment of  its  officers  as  well  as  the  direction  of 

His  sincere  and  zealous  cooperation  is  no  doubt  useful,  but  it 
is  not  indispensable,  in  the  carrying  on  of  public  affairs.  All 
his  important  acts  are  directly  or  indirectly  submitted  to  the 
legislature,  and  of  his  own  free  authority  he  can  do  but  little. 
It  is,  therefore,  ils  weakness,  and  not  his  power,  which  ena- 
bres  him  to  remain  in  opposition  to  Congress.  In  Europe, 
harmony  must  reign  between  the  Crown  and  the  other  branches 
of  the  legislature,  because  a  collision  between  them  may  prove 
serious ;  in  America,  this  harmony  is  not  indispensable,  be- 
cause such  a  collision  is  impossible."  —  De  TocqueviUe,  L  pi 
124. 


268  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

its  means  and  policy,  is  given  immediately  into 
the  hands  of  that  branch  of  the  government 
whose  power  is  paramount,  the  representative 
body.  Roger  Sherman,  whose  perception  was 
amongst  the  keenest  and  whose  sagacity  was 
amongst  the  surest  in  the  great  Convention  of 
1787,  was  very  bold  and  outspoken  in  declaring 
this  fact  and  in  proposing  to  give  it  candid  rec- 
ognition. Perceiving  very  clearly  the  omnipo- 
tence which  must  inevitably  belong  to  a  national 
Congress  such  as  the  convention  was  about  to 
create,  he  avowed  that  "  he  considered  the  execu- 
tive magistracy  as  nothing  more  than  an  institu- 
tion for  carrying  the  will  of  the  legislature  into 
effect ;  that  the  person  or  persons  [who  should 
constitute  the  executive]  ought  to  be  appointed 
by,  and  accountable  to,  the  legislature  only, 
which  was  the  depository  of  the  supreme  will  of 
the  society."  Indeed,  the  executive  was  in  his 
view  so  entirely  the  servant  of  the  legislative 
will  that  he  saw  good  reason  to  think  that  the 
legislature  should  judge  of  the  number  of  per- 
sons of  which  the  executive  should  be  composed  ; 
and  there  seem  to  have  been  others  in  the  con- 
vention who  went  along  with  him  in  substantial 
agreement  as  to  these  matters.  It  would  seem 
to  have  been  only  a  desire  for  the  creation  of  as 
many  as  possible  of  those  balances  of  power 
which  now  decorate  the  "  literary  theory  "  of  the 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  269 

Constitution  which  they  made  that  prevented  a 
universal  acquiescence  in  these  views. 

The  anomaly  which  has  resulted  is  seen  most 
clearly  in  the  party  relations  of  the  President 
and  his  Cabinet.  The  President  is  a  partisan,  — 
is  elected  because  he  is  a  partisan,  —  and  yet  he 
not  infrequently  negatives  the  legislation  passed 
by  the  party  whom  he  represents  ;  and  it  may 
be  said  to  be  nowadays  a  very  rare  thing  to  find 
a  Cabinet  made  up  of  truly  representative  party 
men.  They  are  the  men  of  his  party  whom  the 
President  likes,  but  not  necessarily  or  always 
the  men  whom  that  party  relishes.  So  low,  in- 
deed, has  the  reputation  of  some  of  our  later 
Cabinets  fallen,  even  in  the  eyes  of  men  of  their 
own  political  connection,  that  writers  in  the  best 
of  our  public  prints  feel  at  full  liberty  to  speak 
of  their  members  with  open  contempt.     "  When 

Mr.  was  made  Secretary  of   the   Navy," 

laughs  the  New  York  "  Nation,"  "  no  one  doubted 
that  he  would  treat  the  Department  as  '  spoils,' 
and  consequently  nobody  has  been  disappointed. 
He  is  one  of  the  statesmen  who  can  hardly  con- 
ceive of  a  branch  of  the  public  Administration 
having  no  spoils  in  it."  And  that  this  separa- 
tion of  the  Cabinet  from  real  party  influence, 
and  from  the  party  leadership  which  would  seem 
properly  to  belong  to  its  official  station,  is  a  nat- 
ural residt  of  our  constitutional  scheme  is  made 


270  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

patent  in  the  fact  that  the  Cabinet  has  advanced 
in  party  insignificance  as  the  system  has  grown 
older.  The  connection  between  the  early  Cabi- 
nets and  the  early  Congresses  was  very  like  the 
relations  between  leaders  and  their  party.  Both 
Hamilton  and  Gallatin  led  rather  than  obeyed 
the  Houses ;  and  it  was  many  years  before  the 
suggestions  of  heads  of  departments  ceased  to  be 
sure  of  respectful  and  acquiescent  consideration 
from  the  legislative  Committees.  But  as  the 
Committees  gained  facility  and  power  the  lead- 
ership of  the  Cabinet  lost  ground.  Congress 
took  command  of  the  government  so  soon  as 
ever  it  got  command  of  itself,  and  no  Secretary 
of  to-day  can  claim  by  virtue  of  his  office  recog- 
nition as  a  party  authority.  Congress  looks 
upon  advice  offered  to  it  by  anybody  but  its  own 
members  as  gratuitous  impertinence. 

At  the  same  time  it  is  quite  evident  that  the 
means  which  Congress  has  of  controlling  the  de- 
partments and  of  exercising  the  searching  over- 
sight at  which  it  aims  are  limited  and  defective. 
Its  intercourse  with  the  President  is  restricted 
to  the  executive  messages,  and  its  intercourse 
with  the  departments  has  no  easier  channels 
than  private  consultations  between  executive  offi- 
cials and  the  Committees,  informal  interviews  of 
the  ministers  with  individual  members  of  Con- 
gress, and  the  written  correspondence  which  the 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  271 

cabinet  officers  from  time  to  time  address  to  the 
presiding  officers  of  the  two  Houses,  at  stated 
intervals,  or  in  response  to  formal  resolutions  of 
inquiry.  Congress  stands  almost  helplessly  out- 
side of  the  departments.  Even  the  special,  irk- 
some, ungracious  investigations  which  it  from 
time  to  time  institutes  in  its  spasmodic  endeav- 
ors to  dispel  or  confirm  suspicions  of  malfea- 
sance or  of  wanton  corruption  do  not  afford  it 
more  than  a  glimpse  of  the  inside  of  a  small 
province  of  federal  administration.  Hostile  or 
designing  officials  can  always  hold  it  at  arm's 
length  by  dexterous  evasions  and  concealments. 
It  can  violently  disturb,  but  it  cannot  often 
fathom,  the  waters  of  the  sea  in  which  the  bigger 
fish  of  the  civil  service  swim  and  feed.  Its  drag- 
net stirs  without  cleansing  the  bottom.  Unless 
it  have  at  the  head  of  the  departments  capable, 
fearless  men,  altogether  in  its  confidence  and  en- 
tirely in  sympathy  with  its  designs,  it  is  clearly 
helpless  to  do  more  than  affright  those  officials 
whose  consciences  are  their  accusers. 

And  it  is  easy  to  see  how  the  commands  as 
well  as  the  questions  of  Congress  may  be  evaded, 
if  not  directly  disobeyed,  by  the  executive  agents. 
Its  Committees  may  command,  but  they  cannot 
superintend  the  execution  of  their  commands. 
The  Secretaries,  though  not  free  enough  to  have 
any  independent  policy  of  their  own,  are  free 


272  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

enough  to  be  very  poor,  because  very  unmanage- 
able, servants.  Once  installed,  their  hold  upon 
their  offices  does  not  depend  upon  the  will  of 
Congress.  If  they  please  the  President,  and 
keep  upon  living  terms  with  their  colleagues,  they 
need  not  seriously  regard  the  displeasure  of  the 
Houses,  unless,  indeed,  by  actual  crime,  they 
rashly  put  themselves  in  the  way  of  its  judicial 
wrath.  If  their  folly  be  not  too  overt  and  ex- 
travagant, their  authority  may  continue  theirs  till 
the  earth  has  four  times  made  her  annual  jour- 
ney round  the  sun.  They  may  make  daily  blun- 
ders in  administration  and  repeated  mistakes  in 
business,  may  thwart  the  plans  of  Congress  in  a 
hundred  small,  vexatious  ways,  and  yet  all  the 
while  snap  their  fingers  at  its  dissatisfaction  or 
displeasure.  They  are  denied  the  gratification 
of  possessing  real  power,  but  they  have  the  satis- 
faction of  being  secure  in  a  petty  independence 
which  gives  them  a  chance  to  be  tricky  and 
scheming.  There  are  ways  and  ways  of  obeying ; 
and  if  Congress  be  not  pleased,  why  need  they 
care  ?  Congress  did  not  give  them  their  places, 
and  cannot  easily  take  them  away. 

Still  it  remains  true  that  all  the  big  affairs 
of  the  departments  are  conducted  in  obedience 
to  the  direction  of  the  Standing  Coumiittees. 
The  President  nominates,  and  with  legislative 
approval  appoints,  to  the  more  important  offices 


TBE  EXECUTIVE.  273 

of  the  government,  and  the  members  of  the  Cab- 
inet have  the  privilege  of  advising  him  as  to 
matters  in  most  of  which  he  has  no  power  of  final 
action  without  the  concurrence  of  the  Senate ; 
but  the  gist  of  all  policy  is  decided  by  legislative, 
not  by  executive,  will.  It  can  be  no  great  satis- 
faction to  any  man  to  possess  the  barren  privi- 
lege of  suggesting  the  best  means  of  managing 
the  every-day  routine  business  of  the  several 
bureaux  so  long  as  the  larger  plans  which  that 
business  is  meant  to  advance  are  made  for  him 
by  others  who  are  set  over  him.  If  one  is  com- 
manded to  go  to  this  place  or  to  that  place,  and 
must  go,  will  he,  nill  he,  it  can  be  but  small  solace 
to  him  that  he  is  left  free  to  determine  whether  he 
will  ride  or  walk  in  going  the  journey.  The  only 
serious  questions  are  whether  or  not  this  so  great 
and  real  control  exerted  by  Congress  can  be 
exercised  efficiently  and  with  sufficient  respon- 
sibility to  those  whom  Congress  represents,  and 
whether  good  government  is  promoted  by  the 
arrangement. 

No  one,  I  take  it  for  granted,  is  disposed  to 
disallow  the  principle  that  the  representatives  of 
the  people  are  the  proper  ultimate  authority  in 
all  matters  of  government,  and  that  adminis- 
tration is  merely  the  clerical  part  of  government. 
Legislation  is  the  originating  force.  It  deter- 
mines what  shall  be  done  ;  and  the  President,  if 
18 


274  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

he  cannot  or  will  not  stay  legislation  by  the  use 
of  his  extraordinary  power  as  a  branch  of  the 
legislature,  is  plainly  bound  in  duty  to  render 
unquestioning  obedience  to  Congress.  And  if  it 
be  his  duty  to  obey,  still  more  is  obedience  the 
bounden  duty  of  his  subordinates.  The  power 
of  making  laws  is  in  its  very  nature  and  essence 
the  power  of  directing,  and  that  power  is  given 
to  Congress.  The  principle  is  without  draw- 
back, and  is  inseparably  of  a  piece  with  all  Anglo- 
Saxon  usage ;  the  difficulty,  if  there  be  any,  must 
lie  in  the  choice  of  means  whereby  to  energize 
the  principle.  The  natural  means  would  seem  to 
be  the  right  on  the  part  of  the  representative 
body  to  have  all  the  executive  servants  of  its  will 
under  its  close  and  constant  supervision,  and  to 
hold  them  to  a  strict  accountability:  in  other 
words,  to  have  the  privilege  of  dismissing  them 
whenever  their  service  became  unsatisfactory. 
This  is  the  matter-of-course  privilege  of  every 
other  master ;  and  if  Congress  does  not  possess 
it,  its  mastery  is  hampered  without  being  denied. 
The  executive  officials  are  its  servants  all  the 
same ;  the  only  difference  is  that  if  they  prove 
negligent,  or  incapable,  or  deceitful  servants 
Congress  must  rest  content  with  the  best  that 
can  be  got  out  of  them  until  its  chief  adminis- 
trative agent,  the  President,  chooses  to  appoint 
better.     It  cannot  make  them  docile,  though  it 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  276 

may  compel  them  to  be  obedient  in  all  greater 
matters.  In  authority  of  rule  Congress  is  made 
master,  but  in  means  of  rule  it  is  made  mere 
magistrate.  It  commands  with  absolute  lord- 
ship, but  it  can  discipline  for  disobedience  only 
by  slow  and  formal  judicial  process.  • 

Upon  Machiavelli's  declaration  that  "nothing 
is  more  important  to  the  stability  of  the  state 
than  that  facility  should  be  given  by  its  consti- 
tution for  the  accusation  of  those  who  are  sup- 
posed to  have  committed  any  public  wrong,"  a 
writer  in  the  "  Westminster  Review  "  m^kes  this 
thoughtful  comment :  "  The  benefit  of  such  a 
provision  is  twofold.  First,  the  salutary  fear 
of  the  probable  coming  of  a  day  of  account  will 
restrain  the  evil  practices  of  some  bad  men  and 
self-seekers ;  secondly,  the  legal  outlet  of  accusa- 
tion gives  vent  to  peccant  humors  in  the  body 
politic,  which,  if  checked  and  driven  inward, 
would  work  to  the  utter  ruin  of  the  constitution  ; 
.  .  .  the  distinction  is  lost  between  accusation 
and  calumny."  ^  And  of  course  it  was  these  ben- 
efits which  our  federal  Constitution  was  meant  to 
secure  by  means  of  its  machinery  of  impeach- 
ment. No  servant  of  the  state,  not  even  the 
President  himself,  was  to  be  beyond  the  reach 
of  accusation  by  the  House  of  Representatives 
and  of  trial  by  the  Senate.  But  the  processes 
1  Westminster  Review,  vol.  Ixvi.,  p.  193. 


276  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

of  impeachment,  like  those  of  amendment,  are 
ponderous  and  difficult  to  handle.  It  requires 
something  like  passion  to  set  them  a-going ;  and 
nothing  short  of  the  grossest  offenses  against  the 
plain  law  of  the  land  will  suffice  to  give  them 
speed  and  effectiveness.  Indignation  so  great  as 
to  overcrow  party  interest  may  secure  a  convic- 
tion ;  nothing  less  can.  Indeed,  judging  by  our 
past  experiences,  impeachment  may  be  said  to  be 
little  more  than  an  empty  menace.  The  House 
of  Representatives  is  a  tardy  grand  jury,  and  the 
Senate  an  uncertain  court. 

Besides,  great  crimes  such  as  might  speed 
even  impeachment  are  not  ordinary  things  in 
the  loosest  public  service.  An  open-eyed  public 
opinion  can  generally  give  them  effective  check. 
That  which  usually  and  every  day  clogs  and 
hampers  good  government  is  folly  or  incapacity 
on  the  part  of  the  ministers  of  state.  Even 
more  necessary,  therefore,  than  a  power  clothed 
with  authority  to  accuse,  try,  and  punish  for 
public  crime  is  some  ultimate  authority,  whose 
privilege  it  shall  be  to  dismiss  for  inefficiency. 
Impeachment  is  aimed  altogether  above  the  head 
of  business  management.  A  merchant  would 
not  think  it  fair,  even  if  it  were  lawful,  to  shoot 
a  clerk  who  could  not  learn  the  business.  Dis. 
missal  is  quite  as  effective  for  his  purposes,  and 
more  merciful  to  the  clerk.     The  crying  incon- 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  277 

venience  of  our  system  is,  therefore,  that  the 
constitutional  authority  whose  prerogative  it  is 
to  direct  policy  and  oversee  administration  has 
fewer  facilities  for  getting  its  work  well  done 
than  has  the  humblest  citizen  for  obtaining  satis- 
factory aid  in  his  own  undertakings.  The  author- 
ity most  interested  in  appointments  and  dismissals 
in  the  civil  service  has  little  to  do  with  the  one 
and  less  to  do  with  the  other.  The  President 
appoints  with  the  sanction  of  the  Senate,  and 
cannot  dismiss  his  advisers  without  legislative 
consent ;  ^  yet  the  ministers  in  reality  serve,  not 
the  President,  but  Congress,  and  Congress  can 
neither  appoint  nor  dismiss.  In  other  words, 
the  President  must  in  both  acts  take  the  in- 
itiative, though  he  is  not  the  real  master ;  and 
Congress,  which  is  the  real  master,  has  in  these 
vital  matters  only  a  consultative  voice,  which  it 
may  utter,  through  its  upper  chamber,  only  when 
its  opinion  is  asked.  I  should  regard  my  business 
as  a  hopeless  undertaking  if  my  chief  agent  had 
to  be  appointed  by  a  third  party,  and,  besides 
being  himself  put  beyond  my  power  of  control, 
were  charged  with  the  choice  and  discipline  of 
all  his  subordinates,  subject  not  to  my  directions, 
but  simply  to  my  acquiescence ! 

The  relations  existing  between  Congress  and 
ihe  departments  must  be  fatally  demoralizing  to 

1  Tenure  of  OflBce  Act,  already  discussed. 


278  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

both.  There  is  and  can  be  between  them  noth« 
ing  like  confidential  and  thorough  cooperation. 
The  departments  may  be  excused  for  that  atti- 
tude of  hostility  which  they  sometimes  assume 
towards  Congress,  because  it  is  quite  human  for 
the  servant  to  fear  and  deceive  the  master  whom 
he  does  not  regard  as  his  friend,  but  suspects  of 
being  a  distrustful  spy  of  his  movements.  Con- 
gress cannot  control  the  officers  of  the  executive 
without  disgracing  them.  Its  only  whip  is  inves- 
tigation, semi-judicial  examination  into  corners 
suspected  to  be  dirty.  It  must  draw  the  public 
eye  by  openly  avowing  a  suspicion  of  malfea- 
sance, and  must  then  magnify  and  intensify  tho 
scandal  by  setting  its  Committees  to  cross-exam- 
ining scared  subordinates  and  sulky  ministers. 
And  after  all  is  over  and  the  murder  out,  prob- 
ably nothing  is  done.  The  offenders,  if  any  one 
has  offended,  often  remain  in  office,  shamed  be- 
fore the  world,  and  ru!^ned  in  the  estimation  of 
all  honest  people,  but  still  drawing  their  sala- 
ries and  comfortably  waiting  for  the  short  mem- 
ory of  the  public  mind  to  forget  them.  Why 
unearth  the  carcass  if  you  cannot  remove  it  ? 

Then,  too,  the  departments  frequently  com- 
plain of  the  incessant  exactions  made  upon  them 
by  Congress.  They  grumble  that  they  are  kept 
busy  in  satisfying  its  curiosity  and  in  meeting 
the  demands  of  its  uneasy  activity.     The  clerks 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  279 

have  ordinarily  as  much  as  they  can  do  in  keep- 
ing afoot  the  usual  routine  business  of  their  de- 
partments ;  but  Congress  is  continually  calling 
upon  them  for  information  which  must  be  labo- 
riously collected  from  all  sorts  of  sources,  remote 
and  accessible.  A  great  speech  in  the  Senate 
may  cost  them  hours  of  anxious  toil :  for  the 
Senator  who  makes  it  is  quite  likely  beforehand 
to  introduce  a  resolution  calling  upon  one  of  the 
Secretaries  for  full  statistics  with  reference  to 
this,  that,  or  the  other  topic  upon  which  he  de- 
sires to  speak.  If  it  be  finance,  he  must  have 
comparative  tables  of  taxation  ;  if  it  be  commerce 
or  the  tariff,  he  cannot  dispense  with  any  of  the 
minutest  figures  of  the  Treasury  accounts ;  what- 
ever be  his  theme,  he  cannot  lay  his  foundations 
more  surely  than  upon  official  information,  and 
the  Senate  is  usually  unhesitatingly  ready  with 
an  easy  assent  to  the  resolution  which  puts  the 
whole  clerical  force  of  the  administration  at  his 
service.  And  of  course  the  House  too  asks  in- 
numerable questions,  which  patient  clerks  and 
protesting  Secretaries  must  answer  to  the  last 
and  most  minute  particular.  This  is  what  the 
departmental  officials  testily  call  the  tyranny  of 
Congress,  and  no  impartial  third  person  can  rea- 
sonably forbid  them  the  use  of  the  word. 

I  know  of  few  things  harder  to  state  clearly 
and  within  reasonable  compass  than  just  how  the 


280  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

nation  keeps  control  of  policy  in  spite  of  these 
hide-and-seek  vagaries  of  authority.  Indeed,  it 
is  doubtful  if  it  does  keep  control  through  all 
the  roundabout  paths  which  legislative  and  ex- 
ecutive responsibility  are  permitted  to  take.  It 
must  follow  Congress  somewhat  blindly ;  Con- 
gress is  known  to  obey  without  altogether  under- 
standing its  Committees :  and  the  Committees 
must  consign  the  execution  of  their  plans  to  offi- 
cials who  have  opportunities  not  a  few  to  hood- 
wink them.  At  the  end  of  these  blind  processes 
is  it  probable  that  the  ultimate  authority,  the 
people,  is  quite  clear  in  its  mind  as  to  what  has 
been  done  or  what  may  be  done  another  time  ? 
Take,  for  example,  financial  policy, —  a  very  fair 
example,  because,  as  I  have  shown,  the  legislative 
stages  of  financial  policy  are  more  talked  about 
than  any  other  congressional  business,  though 
for  that  reason  an  extreme  example.  If,  after 
appropriations  and  adjustments  of  taxation  have 
been  tardily  and  in  much  tribulation  of  scheming 
and  argument  agreed  upon  by  the  House,  the  im- 
perative suggestions  and  stubborn  insistence  of 
the  Senate  confuse  matters  till  hardly  the  Confer- 
ence Committees  themselves  know  clearly  what 
the  outcome  of  the  disagreements  has  been ;  and 
if,  when  these  compromise  measures  are  launched 
as  laws,  the  method  of  their  execution  is  beyond 
the  view  of  the  Houses,  in  the  semi-privacy  of 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  281 

the  departments,  how  is  the  comprehension  — 
not  to  speak  of  the  will  —  of  the  people  to  keep 
any  sort  of  hold  upon  the  course  of  affairs? 
There  are  no  screws  of  responsibility  which  they 
can  turn  upon  the  consciences  or  upon  the  offi- 
cial thumbs  of  the  congressional  Committees 
principally  concerned.  Congressional  Commit- 
tees are  nothing  to  the  nation :  they  are  only 
pieces  of  the  interior  mechanism  of  Congress. 
To  Congress  they  stand  or  fall.  And,  since 
Congress  itself  can  scarcely  be  sure  of  having  its 
own  way  with  them,  the  constituencies  are  mani- 
festly unlikely  to  be  able  to  govern  them.  As 
for  the  departments,  the  people  can  hardly  do 
more  in  drilling  them  to  unquestioning  obedience 
and  docile  efficiency  than  Congress  can.  Con- 
gress is,  and  must  be,  in  these  matters  the  na- 
tion's eyes  and  voice.  If  it  cannot  see  what 
goes  wrong  and  cannot  get  itself  heeded  when  it 
commands,  the  nation  likewise  is  both  blind  and 
dumb. 

This,  plainly  put,  is  the  practical  result  of  the 
piecing  of  authority,  the  cutting  of  it  up  into 
small  bits,  which  is  contrived  in  our  constitu- 
tional system.  Each  branch  of  the  government 
is  fitted  out  with  a  small  section  of  responsibility, 
whose  limited  opportunities  afford  to  the  con- 
science of  each  many  easy  escapes.  Every  sus- 
pected culprit  may  shift  the  responsibility  upon 


282  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

his  fellows.  Is  Congress  rated  for  corrupt  or 
imperfect  or  foolish  legislation?  It  may  urge 
that  it  has  to  follow  hastily  its  Committees  or  do 
nothing  at  all  but  talk ;  how  can  it  help  it  if  a 
stupid  Committee  leads  it  unawares  into  unjust 
or  fatuous  enterprises 'i'  Does  administration 
blunder  and  run  itself  into  all  sorts  of  straits  ? 
The  Secretaries  hasten  to  plead  the  unreasonable 
or  unwise  commands  of  Congress,  and  Congress 
falls  to  blaming  the  Secretaries.  The  Secreta- 
ries aver  that  the  whole  mischief  might  have 
been  avoided  if  they  had  only  been  allowed  to 
suggest  the  proper  measures  ;  and  the  men  who 
framed  the  existing  measures  in  their  turn  avow 
their  despair  of  good  government  so  long  as  they 
must  intrust  all  their  plans  to  the  bungling  in- 
competence of  men  who  are  appointed  by  and 
responsible  to  somebody  else.  How  is  the  school- 
master, the  nation,  to  know  which  boy  needs  the 
whipping  ? 

Moreover,  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  this 
division  of  authority  and  concealment  of  respon- 
sibility are  calculated  to  subject  the  government 
to  a  very  distressing  paralysis  in  moments  of 
emergency.  There  are  few,  if  any,  important 
steps  that  can  be  taken  by  any  one  branch  of 
the  government  without  the  consent  or  coopera- 
tion of  some  other  branch.  Congress  must  act 
through  the  President  and  his  Cabinet ;  the  Pres. 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  283 

ident  and  his  Cabinet  must  wait  upon  the  will 
of  Congress.  There  is  no  one  supreme,  ultimate 
head  —  whether  magistrate  or  representative 
body  —  which  can  decide  at  once  and  with  con- 
clusive authority  what  shall  be  done  at  those 
times  when  some  decision  there  must  be,  and 
that  immediately.  Of  course  this  lack  is  of  a 
sort  to  be  felt  at  all  times,  in  seasons  of  tranquil 
rounds  of  business  as  well  as  at  moments  of  sharp 
crisis ;  but  in  times  of  sudden  exigency  it  might 
prove  fatal,  —  fatal  either  in  breaking  down  the 
system  or  in  failing  to  meet  the  emergency.^ 
Policy  cannot  be  either  prompt  or  straightfor- 
ward when  it  must  serve  many  masters.  It  must 
either  equivocate,  or  hesitate,  or  fail  altogether. 
It  may  set  out  with  clear  purpose  from  Congress, 
but  get  waylaid  or  maimed  by  the  Executive. 

If  there  be  one  principle  clearer  than  another, 
it  is  this :  that  in  any  business,  whether  of  gov- 
ernment or  of  mere  merchandising,  somebody 
must  he  trusted.,  in  order  that  when  things  go 
wrong  it  may  be  quite  plain  who  should  be  pun- 
ished. In  order  to  drive  trade  at  the  speed  and 
with  the  success  you  desire,  you  must  confide 
without  suspicion  in  your  chief  clerk,  giving  him 

1  These  "  if s  "  are  abnndantly  supported  by  the  executive 
acts  of  the  war-time.  The  Constitution  had  then  to  stand 
aside  that  President  Lincoln  might  be  as  prompt  as  the  seem? 
iug  necessities  of  the  time. 


284  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

the  power  to  ruin  you,  because  you  thereby  fur- 
nish him  with  a  motive  for  serving  you.  His 
reputation,  his  own  honor  or  disgrace,  all  his 
own  commercial  prospects,  hang  upon  your  suc- 
cess. And  human  nature  is  much  the  same  in 
government  as  in  the  dry-goods  trade.  Power 
and  strict  accountability  Jbr  its  use  are  the  es- 
sential constituents  of  good  government.  A 
sense  of  highest  responsibility,  a  dignifying  and 
elevating  sense  of  being  trusted,  together  with  a 
consciousness  of  being  in  an  official  station  so 
conspicuous  that  no  faithful  discharge  of  duty 
can  go  unacknowledged  and  unrewarded,  and 
no  breach  of  trust  undiscovered  and  unpunished, 
—  these  are  the  influences,  the  only  influences, 
which  foster  practical,  energetic,  and  trustworthy 
statesmanship.  The  best  rulers  are  always  those 
to  whom  great  power  is  intrusted  in  such  a  man- 
ner as  to  make  them  feel  that  they  will  surely 
be  abundantly  honored  and  recompensed  for  a 
just  and  patriotic  use  of  it,  and  to  make  them 
know  that  nothing  can  shield  them  from  full  ret- 
ribution for  every  abuse  of  it. 

It  is,  therefore,  manifestly  a  radical  defect  in 
our  federal  system  that  it  parcels  out  power  and 
confuses  responsibility  as  it  does.  The  main 
purpose  of  the  Convention  of  1787  seems  to  have 
been  to  accomplish  this  grievous  mistake.  The 
"  literary  theory  "  of  checks  and  balances  is  sim- 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  285 

ply  a  consistent  account  of  what  our  constitution- 
makers  tried  to  do ;  and  those  checks  and  bal- 
ances have  proved  mischievous  just  to  the  extent 
to  which  they  have  succeeded  in  establishing 
themselves  as  realities.  It  is  quite  safe  to  say 
that  were  it  possible  to  call  together  again  the 
members  of  that  wonderful  Convention  to  view 
the  work  of  their  hands  in  the  light  of  the  cen- 
tury that  has  tested  it,  they  would  be  the  first  to 
admit  that  the  only  fruit  of  dividing  power  had 
been  to  make  it  irresponsible.  It  is  just  this 
that  has  made  civil  service  reform  tarry  in  this 
country  and  that  makes  it  still  almost  doubtful 
of  issue.  We  are  in  just  the  case  that  England 
was  in  before  she  achieved  the  reform  for  which 
we  are  striving.  The  date  of  the  reform  in  Eng- 
land is  no  less  significant  than  the  fact.  It  was 
not  accomplished  until  a  distinct  responsibility 
of  the  Ministers  of  the  Crown  to  one,  and  to 
only  one,  master  had  been  established  beyond 
all  uncertainty.  This  is  the  most  striking  and 
suggestive  lesson  to  be  gathered  from  Mr.  Ea- 
ton's interesting  and  valuable  history  of  Civil 
Service  in  Great  Britain.  The  Reform  was 
originated  in  1853  by  the  Cabinet  of  Lord  Aber- . 
deen.  It  sprang  from  the  suggestion  of  the  ap- 
pointing officers,  and  was  carried  through  in  the 
face  of  opposition  from  the  House  of  Commons, 
because,  paradoxically  enough,  the  Ministry  had 


286  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

at  last  come  to  feel  their  responsibility  to  the 
Commons,  or  rather  to  the  nation  whom  the 
Commons  represented. 

Those  great  improvements  which  have  been 
made  in  the  public  service  of  the  British  empire 
since  the  days  of  Walpole  and  Newcastle  have 
gone  hand  in  hand  with  the  perfecting  of  the 
system  now  known  as  responsible  Cabinet  gov- 
ernment. That  system  was  slow  in  coming  to 
perfection.  It  was  not  till  long  after  Walpole's 
day  that  unity  of  responsibility  on  the  part  of 
the  Cabinet  —  and  that  singleness  of  responsibil- 
ity which  made  them  look  only  to  the  Commons 
for  authority  —  came  to  be  recognized  as  an  es- 
tablished constitutional  principle.  "  As  a  con- 
sequence of  the  earlier  practice  of  constructing 
Cabinets  of  men  of  different  political  views,  it 
followed  that  the  members  of  such  Cabinets  did 
not  and  could  not  regard  their  responsibility  to 
Parliament  as  one  and  indivisible.  The  resigna- 
tion of  an  important  member,  or  even  of  the 
Prime  Minister,  was  not  regarded  as  necessitat- 
ing the  simultaneous  retirement  of  his  colleagues. 
Even  so  late  as  the  fall  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole, 
fifty  years  after  the  Revolution  Settlement  (and 
itself  the  first  instance  of  resignation  in  defer- 
ence to  a  hostile  parliamentary  vote)  we  find  the 
King  requesting  Walpole's  successor,  Pulteney, 
*not  to  distress  the  Government  by  making  too 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  287 

many  changes  in  the  midst  of  a  session ; '  and 
Pulteney  replying  that  he  would  be  satisfied, 
provided  '  the  main  forts  of  the  Government,' 
or,  in  other  words,  the  principal  offices  of  state, 
were  placed  in  his  hands.  It  was  not  till  the 
displacement  of  Lord  North's  ministry  by  that 
of  Lord  Rockingham  in  1782  that  a  whole  ad- 
ministration, with  the  exception  of  the  Lord 
Chancellor,  was  changed  by  a  vote  of  want  of 
confidence  passed  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
Thenceforth,  however,  the  resignation  of  the 
head  of  a  Government  in  deference  to  an  adverse 
vote  of  the  popular  chamber  has  invariably  been 
accompanied  by  the  resignation  of  all  his  col- 
leagues." ^  But,  even  after  the  establishment  of 
that  precedent,  it  was  still  many  years  before 
Cabinets  were  free  to  please  none  but  the  Com- 
mons, —  free  to  follow  their  own  policies  with- 
out authoritative  suggestion  from  the  sovereign. 
Until  the  death  of  the  fourth  George  they  were 
made  to  feel  that  they  owed  a  double  allegiance : 
to  the  Commons  and  to  the  King.  The  compo- 
sition of  Ministries  still  depended  largely  on  the 
royal  whim,  and  their  actions  were  hampered  by 
the  necessity  of  steering  a  careful  middle  course 
between  the  displeasure  of  parliament  and  the 
ill-will  of  His  Majesty.     The   present  century 

1  Central  Government  (£ng.  Citizea  Series),  H.  D.  Traill, 

p.  2a. 


288  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

had  run  far  on  towards  the  reign  of  Victoria  be- 
fore they  were  free  to  pay  undivided  obedience 
to  the  representatives  of  the  people.  When 
once  they  had  become  responsible  to  the  Com- 
mons alone,  however,  and  almost  as  soon  as  they 
were  assured  of  their  new  position  as  the  ser- 
vants of  the  nation,  they  were  prompted  to  even 
hazardous  efforts  for  the  reform  of  the  civil  ser- 
vice. They  were  conscious  that  the  entire  weight 
and  responsibility  of  government  rested  upon 
their  shoulders,  and,  as  men  regardful  of  the  in- 
terests of  the  party  which  they  represented,  jeal- 
ous for  the  preservation  of  their  own  fair  names, 
and  anxious,  consequently,  for  the  promotion  of 
wise  rule,  they  were  naturally  and  of  course  the 
first  to  advocate  a  better  system  of  appointment 
to  that  service  whose  chiefs  they  were  recognized 
to  be.  They  were  prompt  to  declare  that  it  was 
the  "  duty  of  the  executive  to  provide  for  the 
efficient  and  harmonious  working  of  the  civil  ser- 
vice," and  that  they  could  not  "transfer  that 
duty  to  any  other  body  far  less  competent  than 
themselves  without  infringing  a  great  and  im- 
portant constitutional  principle,  already  too  often 
infringed,  to  the  great  detriment  of  the  public 
service."  They  therefore  determined  themselves 
to  inaugurate  the  merit-system  without  waiting 
for  the  assent  of  parliament,  by  simply  surren- 
dering their  power  of  appointment  in  the  various 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  289 

departments  to  a  non-partisan  examining  board, 
trusting  to  the  power  of  public  opinion  to  in- 
duce parliament,  after  the  thing  had  been  done, 
to  vote  sufficient  money  to  put  the  scheme  into 
successful  operation.  And  they  did  not  reckon 
without  their  host.  Reluctant  as  the  members 
of  the  House  of  Commons  were  to  resign  that 
control  of  the  national  patronage  which  they 
had  from  time  immemorial  been  accustomed  to 
exercise  by  means  of  various  crooked  indirections, 
and  which  it  had  been  their  pleasure  and  their 
power  to  possess,  they  had  not  the  face  to  avow 
their  suspicious  unwillingness  in  answer  to  the 
honorable  call  of  a  trusted  Ministry  who  were 
supported  in  their  demand  by  all  that  was  hon- 
est in  public  sentiment,  and  the  world  was  af- 
forded the  gratifying  but  unwonted  spectacle  of 
party  leaders  sacrificing  to  the  cause  of  good 
government,  freely  and  altogether  of  their  own 
accord,  the  "  spoils  "  of  office  so  long  dear  to 
the  party  and  to  the  assembly  which  they  repre- 
sented and  served. 

In  this  country  the  course  of  the  reform  was 
quite  the  reverse.  Neither  the  Executive  nor 
Congress  began  it.  The  call  for  it  came  impera- 
tively from  the  people  ;  it  was  a  formulated  de- 
mand of  public  opinion  made  upon  Congress, 
and  it  had  to  be  made  again  and  again,  each 
time  with  more  determined   emphasis,   before 

19 


290  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

Congress  heeded.  It  worked  its  way  up  from 
the  convictions  of  the  many  to  the  purposes  of 
the  few.  Amongst  the  chief  difficulties  that 
have  stood  in  its  way,  and  which  still  block  its 
perfect  realization,  is  that  peculiarity  of  struc- 
ture which  I  have  just  now  pointed  out  as  in- 
trinsic in  the  scheme  of  divided  power  which 
runs  through  the  Constitution.  One  of  the  con- 
ditions precedent  to  any  real  and  lasting  reform 
of  the  civil  service,  in  a  country  whose  public 
service  is  moulded  by  the  conditions  of  self- 
government,  is  the  drawing  of  a  sharp  line  of 
distinction  between  those  offices  which  are  po- 
litical and  those  which  are  wow-political.  The 
strictest  rules  of  business  discipline,  of  merit- 
tenure  and  earned  promotion,  must  rule  every 
office  whose  incumbent  has  naught  to  do  with 
choosing  between  policies ;  but  no  rules  except 
the  choice  of  parties  can  or  should  make  and 
unmake,  reward  or  punish,  those  officers  whose 
privilege  it  is  to  fix  upon  the  political  purposes 
which  administration  shall  be  made  to  serve. 
These  latter  are  not  many  under  any  form  of 
government.  There  are  said  to  be  but  fifty  such 
at  most  in  the  civil  service  of  Great  Britain  ; 
but  these  fifty  go  in  or  out  as  the  balance  of 
power  shifts  from  party  to  party.  In  the  case  of 
our  own  civil  service  it  would,  I  take  it,  be  ex- 
tremely  hard  to  determine  where  the  line  should 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  291 

be  drawn.  In  all  the  higher  grades  this  partic- 
ular distinction  is  quite  obscured.  A  doubt  ex- 
ists as  to  the  Cabinet  itself.  Are  the  Secretaries 
political  or  non-political  officers  ?  It  would  seem 
that  they  are  exclusively  neither.  They  are  at 
least  serai-political.  They  are,  on  the  one  hand, 
merely  the  servants  of  Congress,  and  yet,  on  the 
other  hand,  they  have  enough  freedom  of  discre- 
tion to  mar  and  color,  if  not  to  choose,  political 
ends.  They  can  wreck  plans,  if  they  cannot 
make  them.  Should  they  be  made  permanent 
officials  because  they  are  mere  Secretaries,  or 
should  their  tenure  depend  upon  the  fortunes  of 
parties  because  they  have  many  chances  to  ren- 
der party  services  ?  And  if  the  one  rule  or  the 
other  is  to  be  applied  to  them,  to  how  many,  and 
to  which  of  their  chief  subordinates,  is  it  to  be 
extended?  If  they  are  not  properly  or  neces- 
sarily party  men,  let  them  pass  the  examinations 
and  run  the  gauntlet  of  the  usual  tests  of  effi- 
ciency, let  errand-boys  work  up  to  Secretary- 
ships ;  but  if  not,  let  their  responsibility  to  their 
party  be  made  strict  and  determinate.  That  is 
•  the  cardinal  point  of  practical  civil  service  re- 
form. 

This  doubt  as  to  the  exact  status  in  the  sys- 
tem of  the  chief  ministers  of  state  is  a  most 
striking  commentary  on  the  system  itself.  Its 
complete   self   is  logical  and  simple.     But  its 


292  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

complete  self  exists  only  in  theory.  Its  real  self 
offers  a  surprise  and  presents  a  mystery  at  every 
change  of  view.  The  practical  observer  who 
seeks  for  facts  and  actual  conditions  of  organi- 
zation is  often  sorely  puzzled  to  come  at  the  real 
methods  of  government.  Pitfalls  await  him  on 
every  side.  If  constitutional  lawyers  of  strait- 
laced  consciences  filled  Congress  and  officered 
the  departments,  every  clause  of  the  Constitu- 
tion would  be  accorded  a  formal  obedience,  and 
it  would  be  as  easy  to  know  beforehand  just 
what  the  government  will  be  like  inside  to-mor- 
row as  it  is  now  to  know  what  it  was  like  out- 
side yesterday.  But  neither  the  Icnowledge  nor 
the  consciences  of  politicians  keep  them  very 
close  to  the  Constitution ;  and  it  is  with  politi- 
cians that  we  have  to  deal  nowadays  in  studying 
the  government.  Every  government  is  largely 
what  the  men  are  who  constitute  it.  If  the 
character  or  opinions  of  legislators  and  admin- 
istrators change  from  time  to  time,  the  nature  of 
the  government  changes  with  them ;  and  as  both 
their  characters  and  their  opinions  do  change 
very  often  it  is  very  hard  to  make  a  picture  of 
the  government  which  can  be  said  to  have  been 
perfectly  faithful  yesterday,  and  can  be  confi- 
dently expected  to  be  exactly  accurate  to-mor- 
row. Add  to  these  embarrassments,  which  may 
be  called  the  embarrassments  of  human  nature. 


THE  EXECUTIVE.  293 

otter  embarrassments  such  as  our  system  af- 
fords, the  embarrassments  of  subtle  legal  dis- 
tinctions, a  fine  theoretical  plan  made  in  delicate 
hair-lines,  reqiurements  of  law  which  can  hardly 
be  met  and  can  easily  and  naturally  be  evaded 
or  disregarded,  and  you  have  in  full  the  concep- 
tion of  the  difficulties  which  attend  a  practical 
exposition  of  the  real  facts  of  federal  adminis- 
tration. It  is  not  impossible  to  point  out  what 
the  Executive  was  intended  to  be,  what  it  has 
sometimes  been,  or  what  it  might  be ;  nor  is  it 
forbidden  the  diligent  to  discover  the  main  con- 
ditions which  mould  it  to  the  forms  of  congres- 
sional supremacy  ;  but  more  than  this  is  not  to 
be  expected. 


VI. 

CONCLUSION. 

Political  philosophy  must  analyze  political  history ;  it  must  distill* 
guish  what  is  due  to  the  excellence  of  the  people,  and  what  to  the  excel- 
lence of  the  laws ;  it  must  carefully  calculate  the  exact  effect  of  each  part 
of  the  constitution,  though  thus  it  may  destroy  many  an  idol  of  the  mul- 
titude, and  detect  the  secret  of  utility  where  but  few  imagined  it  to  lie. 
—  Baqehot. 

Congress  always  makes  what  haste  it  can  to 
legislate.  It  is  the  prime  object  of  its  rules  to 
expedite  law-making.  Its  customs  are  fruits 
of  its  characteristic  diligence  in  enactment.  Be 
the  matters  small  or  great,  frivolous  or  grave, 
which  busy  it,  its  aim  is  to  have  laws  always 
a-making.  Its  temper  is  strenuously  legislative. 
That  it  cannot  regulate  all  the  questions  to 
which  its  attention  is  weekly  invited  is  its  mis- 
fortune, not  its  fault ;  is  due  to  the  human  lim- 
itation of  its  faculties,  not  to  any  narrow  cir- 
cumscription of  its  desires.  If  its  committee 
machinery  is  inadequate  to  the  task  of  bringing 
to  action  more  than  one  out  of  every  hundred  of 
the  bills  introduced,  it  is  not  because  the  quick 
clearance  of  the  docket  is  not  the  motive  of  its 


CONCLUSION.  295 

organic  life.  If  legislation,  therefore,  were  the 
only  or  the  chief  object  for  which  it  should  live, 
it  would  not  be  possible  to  withhold  admiration 
from  those  clever  hurrying  rides  and  those  in- 
exorable customs  which  seek  to  facilitate  it. 
Nothing  but  a  doubt  as  to  whether  or  not  Con- 
gress should  confine  itself  to  law-making  can 
challenge  with  a  question  the  utility  of  its  or- 
ganization as  a  facile  statute-devising  machine. 

The  political  philosopher  of  these  days  of  self- 
government  has,  however,  something  more  than 
a  doubt  with  which  to  gainsay  the  usefulness  of 
a  sovereign  representative  body  which  confines 
itself  to  legislation  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other 
functions.  Buckle  declared,  indeed,  that  the 
chief  use  and  value  of  legislation  nowadays  lay 
in  its  opportunity  and  power  to  remedy  the  mis- 
takes of  the  legislation  of  the  past ;  that  it  was 
beneficent  only  when  it  carried  healing  in  its 
wings ;  that  repeal  was  more  blessed  than  enact- 
ment. And  it  is  certainly  true  that  the  greater 
part  of  the  labor  of  legislation  consists  in  carry- 
ing the  loads  recklessly  or  bravely  shouldered  in 
times  gone  by,  when  the  animal  which  is  now  a 
bvdl  was  only  a  calf,  and  in  completing,  if  they 
may  be  completed,  the  tasks  once  undertaken  in 
the  shape  of  unambitious  schemes  which  at  the 
outset  looked  innocent  enough.  Having  got  his 
foot  into  it,  the  legislator  finds  it  difficult,  if  not 


296  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

impossible,  to  get  it  out  again.  "  The  modem 
industrial  organization,  including  banks,  corpo- 
rations, joint-stock  companies,  financial  devices, 
national  debts,  paper  currency,  national  systems 
of  taxation,  is  largely  the  creation  of  legislation 
(not  in  its  historical  origin,  but  in  the  mode  of 
its  existence  and  in  its  authority),  and  is  largely 
regulated  by  legislation.  Capital  is  the  breath 
of  life  to  this  organization,  and  every  day,  as 
the  organization  becomes  more  complex  and  del- 
icate, the  folly  of  assailing  capital  or  credit  be- 
comes greater.  At  the  same  time  it  is  evident 
that  the  task  of  the  legislator  to  embrace  in  his 
view  the  whole  system,  to  adjust  his  rides  so 
that  the  play  of  the  civil  institutions  shall  not 
alter  the  play  of  the  economic  forces,  requires 
more  training  and  more  acumen.  Furthermore, 
the  greater  the  complication  and  delicacy  of  the 
industrial  system,  the  greater  the  chances  for 
cupidity  when  backed  by  craft,  and  the  task  of 
the  legislator  to  meet  and  defeat  the  attempts  of 
this  cupidity  is  one  of  constantly  increasing  diffi- 
culty." i 

1  Professor  Sumner's  Andrew  Jackson  (American  States- 
men Series),  p.  226.  "  Finally,"  adds  Prof.  S.,  "  the  methods 
and  machinery  of  democratic  republican  self-government  — 
caucuses,  primaries,  committees,  and  conventions  —  lend  them- 
selves perhaps  more  easily  than  any  other  methods  and  ma- 
chinery to  the  uses  of  selfish  cliques  which  seek  political  inflT 
ence  for  interested  purposes." 


CONCLUSION.  297 

Legislation  unquestionably  generates  legisla- 
tion. Every  statute  may  be  said  to  have  a  long 
lineage  of  statutes  behind  it ;  and  whether  that 
lineage  be  honorable  or  of  ill  repute  is  as  much 
a  question  as  to  each  individual  statute  as  it 
can  be  with  regard  to  the  ancestry  of  each  in- 
dividual legislator.  Every  statute  in  its  turn 
has  a  numerous  progeny,  and  only  time  and  op- 
portunity can  decide  whether  its  offspring  will 
bring  it  honor  or  shame.  Once  begin  the  dance 
of  legislation,  and  you  must  struggle  through  its 
mazes  as  best  you  can  to  its  breathless  end,  —  if 
any  end  there  be. 

It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  the  enact- 
ing, revising,  tinkering,  repealing  of  laws  should 
engross  the  attention  and  engage  the  entire 
energy  of  such  a  body  as  Congress.  It  is,  how- 
ever, easy  to  see  how  it  might  be  better  em- 
ployed ;  or,  at  least,  how  it  might  add  others 
to  this  overshadowing  function,  to  the  infinite 
advantage  of  the  government.  Quite  as  impor- 
tant as  legislation  is  vigilant  oversight  of  ad- 
ministration ;  and  even  more  important  than 
legislation  is  the  instruction  and  guidance  in 
political  affairs  which  the  people  might  receive 
from  a  body  which  kept  all  national  concerns 
suffused  in  a  broad  daylight  of  discussion. 
There  is  no  similar  legislature  in  existence 
which  is  so  shut  up  to  the  one  business  of  law- 


298  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

making  as  is  our  Congress.  As  I  have  said,  it 
in  a  way  superintends  administration  by  the 
exercise  of  semi-judicial  powers  of  investigation, 
whose  limitations  and  insufficiency  are  manifest. 
But  other  national  legislatures  command  ad- 
ministration and  verify  their  name  of  "  parlia- 
ments" by  talking  official  acts  into  notoriety. 
Our  extra-constitutional  party  conventions,  short- 
lived and  poor  in  power  as  they  are,  constitute 
our  only  machinery  for  that  sort  of  control  of 
the  executive  which  consists  in  the  award  of 
personal  rewards  and  punishments.  This  is  the 
cardinal  fact  which  differentiates  Congress  from 
the  Chamber  of  Deputies  and  from  Parliament, 
and  which  puts  it  beyond  the  reach  of  those 
eminently  useful  functions  whose  exercise  would 
so  raise  it  in  usefulness  and  in  dignity. 

An  eifective  representative  body,  gifted  with 
the  power  to  rule,  ought,  it  would  seem,  not 
only  to  speak  the  will  of  the  nation,  which 
Congress  does,  but  also  to  lead  it  to  its  conclu- 
sions, to  utter  the  voice  of  its  opinions,  and  to 
serve  as  its  eyes  in  superintending  all  matters 
of  government,  —  which  Congress  does  not  do. 
The  discussions  which  take  place  in  Congress 
are  aimed  at  random.  They  now  and  again 
strike  rather  sharply  the  tender  spots  in  this, 
that,  or  the  other  measure ;  but,  as  I  have  said, 
no  two  measures  consciously  join  in  purpose  or 


CONCLUSION.  299 

agree  in  character,  and  so  debate  must  wander 
as  widely  as  the  subjects  of  debate.  Since  there 
is  little  coherency  about  the  legislation  agreed 
upon,  there  can  be  little  coherency  about  the 
debates.  There  is  no  one  policy  to  be  attacked 
or  defended,  but  only  a  score  or  two  of  separate 
bills.  To  attend  to  such  discussions  is  uninter- 
esting ;  to  be  instructed  by  them  is  impossible. 
There  is  some  scandal  and  discomfort,  but  infi- 
nite advantage,  in  having  every  affair  of  adminis- 
tration subjected  to  the  test  of  constant  examina- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  assembly  which  represents 
the  nation.  The  chief  use  of  such  inquisition 
is,  not  the  direction  of  those  affairs  in  a  way 
with  which  the  country  will  be  satisfied  (though 
that  itself  is  of  course  all-important),  but  the 
enlightenment  of  the  people,  which  is  always  its 
sure  consequence.  Very  few  men  are  unequal 
to  a  danger  which  they  see  and  understand ;  all 
men  quail  before  a  threatening  which  is  dark 
and  unintelligible,  and  suspect  what  is  done 
behind  a  screen.  If  the  people  could  have, 
through  Congress,  daily  knowledge  of  all  the 
more  important  transactions  of  the  governmen- 
tal offices,  an  insight  into  all  that  now  seems 
withheld  and  private,  their  confidence  in  the 
executive,  now  so  often  shaken,  would,  I  think, 
be  very  soon  established.  Because  dishonesty 
tan  lurk  under  the  privacies  now  vouchsafed 


300  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

our  administrative  agents,  much  that  is  upright 
and  pure  suffers  unjust  suspicion.  Discoveries 
of  guilt  in  a  bureau  cloud  with  doubts  the 
trustworthiness  of  a  department.  As  nothing 
is  open  enough  for  the  quick  and  easy  detection 
of  peculation  or  fraud,  so  nothing  is  open  enough 
for  the  due  vindication  and  acknowledgment  of 
honesty.  The  isolation  and  privacy  which  shield 
the  one  from  discovery  cheat  the  other  of  re- 
ward. 

Inquisitiveness  is  never  so  forward,  enterpris- 
ing, and  irrepressible  as  in  a  popular  assembly 
which  is  given  leave  to  ask  questions  and  is 
afforded  ready  and  abundant  means  of  getting 
its  questions  answered.  No  cross-examination 
is  more  searching  than  that  to  which  a  minister 
of  the  Crown  is  subjected  by  the  all-curious 
Commons.  "  Sir  Robert  Peel  once  asked  to 
have  a  number  of  questions  carefully  written 
down  which  they  asked  him  one  day  in  succes- 
sion in  the  House  of  Commons.  They  seemed 
a  list  of  everything  that  could  occur  in  the 
British  empire  or  to  the  brain  of  a  member  of 
parliament."  ^  If  one  considered  only  the  wear 
and  tear  upon  ministers  of  state,  which  the 
plague  of  constant  interrogation  must  inflict,  he 
could  wish  that  their  lives,  if  useful,  might  be 
spared  this  blight  of  unending  explanation ;  but 
1  Bagehot :  Etsay  on  Sir  Robert  Peel,  p.  24. 


CONCLUSION.  801 

no  one  can  overestimate  the  immense  advantage 
of  a  facility  so  imlimited  for  knowing  all  that 
is  going  on  in  the  places  where  authority  lives. 
The  conscience  of  every  member  of  the  represen- 
tative body  is  at  the  service  of  the  nation.  All 
that  he  feels  bound  to  know  he  can  find  out ; 
and  what  he  finds  out  goes  to  the  ears  of  the 
country.  The  question  is  his,  the  answer  the 
nation's.  And  the  inquisitiveness  of  such  bodies 
as  Congress  is  the  best  conceivable  source  of 
information.  Congress  is  the  only  body  which 
has  the  proper  motive  for  inquiry,  and  it  is  the 
only  body  which  has  the  power  to  act  effectively 
upon  the  knowledge  which  its  inquiries  secure. 
The  Press  is  merely  curious  or  merely  partisan. 
The  people  are  scattered  and  unorganized.  But 
Congress  is,  as  it  were,  the  corporate  people, 
the  mouthpiece  of  its  will.  It  is  a  sovereign 
delegation  which  could  ask  questions  with  dig- 
nity, because  with  authority  and  with  power  to 
act. 

Congress  is  fast  becoming  the  governing  body 
of  the  nation,  and  yet  the  only  power  which  it 
possesses  in  perfection  is  the  power  which  is  but 
a  part  of  government,  the  power  of  legislation. 
Legislation  is  but  the  oil  of  government.  It  is 
that  which  lubricates  its  channels  and  speeds  its 
wheels ;  that  which  lessens  the  friction  and  so 
eases  the   movement.     Or  perhaps   I   shall  be 


302  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

admitted  to  have  hit  upon  a  closer  and  apter 
analogy  if  I  say  that  legislation  is  like  a  fore- 
man set  over  the  forces  of  government.  It 
issues  the  orders  which  others  obey.  It  directs, 
it  admonishes,  but  it  does  not  do  the  actual 
heavy  work  of  governing.  A  good  foreman 
does,  it  is  true,  himself  take  a  hand  in  the  work 
which  he  guides ;  and  so  I  suppose  our  legisla- 
tion must  be  likened  to  a  poor  foreman,  because 
it  stands  altogether  apart  from  that  work  which 
it  is  set  to  see  well  done.  Members  of  Congress 
ought  not  to  be  censured  too  severely,  however, 
when  they  fail  to  check  evil  courses  on  the  part 
of  the  executive.  They  have  been  denied  the 
means  of  doing  so  promptly  and  with  effect. 
Whatever  intention  may  have  controlled  the 
compromises  of  constitution  -  making  in  1787, 
their  result  was  to  give  us,  not  government  by 
discussion,  which  is  the  only  tolerable  sort  of 
government  for  a  people  which  tries  to  do  its 
own  governing,  but  only  legislation  by  discus- 
sion, which  is  no  more  than  a  small  part  of 
government  by  discussion.  What;  is  quite  as 
indispensable  as  the  debate  of  problems  of  legis- 
lation is  the  debate  of  all  matters  of  administra- 
tion. It  is  even  more  important  to  know  how 
the  house  is  being  built  than  to  know  how  the 
plans  of  the  architect  were  conceived  and  how 
his  specifications  were  calculated.    It  is  better  to 


CONCLUSION.  303 

have  skillful  work  —  stout  walls,  reliable  arches, 
unbending  rafters,  and  windows  sure  to  "  expel 
the  winter's  flaw  "  —  than  a  drawing  on  paper 
which  is  the  admiration  of  all  the  practical 
artists  in  the  country.  The  discipline  of  an 
army  depends  quite  as  much  upon  the  temper  of 
the  troops  as  upon  the  orders  of  the  day. 

It  is  the  proper  duty  of  a  representative  body 
to  look  diligently  into  every  affair  of  government 
and  to  talk  much  about  what  it  sees.  It  is 
meant  to  be  the  eyes  and  the  voice,  and  to 
embody  the  wisdom  and  will  of  its  constituents. 
Unless  Congress  have  and  use  every  means  of 
acquainting  itself  with  the  acts  and  the  disposi- 
tion of  the  administrative  agents  of  the  govern- 
ment, the  country  must  be  helpless  to  learn  how 
it  is  being  served ;  and  unless  Congress  both 
scrutinize  these  things  and  sift  them  by  every 
form  of  discussion,  the  country  must  remain  in 
embarrassing,  crippling  ignorance  of  the  very 
affairs  which  it  is  most  important  that  it  should 
understand  and  direct.  The  informing  function 
of  Congress  should  be  preferred  even  to  its 
legislative  function.  The  argument  is  not  only 
.  that  discussed  and  interrogated  administration 
is  the  only  pure  and  efficient  administration, 
but,  more  than  that,  that  the  only  really  self- 
governing  people  is  that  people  which  discusses 
and  interrogates  its  administration.     The   talk 


304  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

on  the  part  of  Congress  which  we  sometimes 
justly  condemn  is  the  profitless  squabble  of 
words  over  frivolous  bills  or  selfish  party  issues. 
It  would  be  hard  to  conceive  of  there  being  too 
much  talk  about  the  practical  concerns  and 
processes  of  government.  Such  talk  it  is  which, 
when  earnestly  and  purposefully  conducted, 
clears  the  public  mind  and  shapes  the  demands 
of  public  opinion. 

Congress  could  not  be  too  diligent  about  such 
talking ;  whereas  it  may  easily  be  too  diligent  in 
legislation.  It  often  .overdoes  that  business.  It 
already  sends  to  its  Committees  biUs  too  many 
by  the  thousand  to  be  given  even  a  hasty 
thought;  but  its  immense  committee  facilities 
and  the  absence  of  all  other  duties  but  that  of 
legislation  make  it  omnivorous  in  its  appetite  for 
new  subjects  for  consideration.  It  is  greedy  to 
have  a  taste  of  every  possible  dish  that  may  be 
put  upon  its  table,  as  an  "extra"  to  the  con- 
stitutional bill  of  fare.  This  disposition  on  its 
part  is  the  more  notable  because  there  is  cer- 
tainly less  need  for  it  to  hurry  and  overwork 
itself  at  law-making  than  exists  in  the  case  of 
most  other  great  national  legislatures.  It  is  not 
state  and  national  legislature  combined,  as  are 
the  Commons  of  England  and  the  Chambers  of 
France.  Like  the  Reichstag  of  our  cousin 
Germans,  it  is  restricted  to  subjects  of  imperial 


CONCLUSION.  306 

scope.  Its  thoughts  are  meant  to  be  kept  for 
national  interests.  Its  time  is  spared  the  waste 
of  attention  to  local  affairs.  It  is  even  forbid- 
den the  vast  domain  of  the  laws  of  property,  of 
commercial  dealing,  and  of  ordinary  crime. 
And  even  in  the  matter  of  caring  for  national 
interests  the  way  has  from  the  first  been  made 
plain  and  easy  for  it.  There  are  no  clogging 
feudal  institutions  to  embarrass  it.  There  is  no 
long-continued  practice  of  legal  or  of  royal 
tyranny  for  it  to  cure,  —  no  clearing  away  of 
old  ddbris  of  any  sort  to  delay  it  in  its  exercise 
of  a  common-sense  dominion  over  a  thoroughly 
modern  and  progi'essive  nation.  It  is  easy  to 
believe  that  its  legislative  purposes  might  be 
most  fortunately  clarified  and  simplified,  were  it 
to  square  them  by  a  conscientious  attention  to 
the  paramount  and  controlling  duty  of  under- 
standing, discussing,  and  directing  administra- 
tion. 

If  the  people's  authorized  representatives  do 
not  take  upon  themselves  this  duty,  and  by 
identifying  themselves  with  the  actual  work  of 
government  stand  between  it  and  irresponsible, 
half -informed  criticism,  to  what  harassments  is 
the  executive  not  exposed?  Led  and  checked 
by  Congress,  the  prurient  and  fearless,  because 
anonymous,  animadversions  of  the  Press,  now  so 
often  premature  and  inconsiderate,  might  be  dis- 


306  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

ciplined  into  serviceable  capacity  to  interpret  and 
judge.  Its  energy  and  sagacity  might  be  tem- 
pered by  discretion,  and  strengthened  by  knowl- 
edge. One  of  our  chief  constitutional  difficulties 
is  that,  in  opportunities  for  informing  and  guid- 
ing public  opinion,  the  freedom  of  the  Press  is 
greater  than  the  freedom  of  Congress.  It  is  as 
if  newspapers,  instead  of  the  board  of  directors, 
were  the  sources  of  information  for  the  stock- 
holders of  a  corporation.  We  look  into  corre- 
spondents' letters  instead  of  into  the  Congres- 
sional Record  to  find  out  what  is  a-doing  and 
a-planning  in  the  departments.  Congress  is  al- 
together excluded  from  the  arrangement  by  which 
the  Press  declares  what  the  executive  is,  and 
conventions  of  the  national  parties  decide  what 
the  executive  shall  be.  Editors  are  self-consti- 
tuted our  guides,  and  caucus  delegates  our  gov- 
ernment directors. 

Since  all  this  curious  scattering  of  functions 
and  contrivance  of  frail,  extra-constitutional  ma- 
chinery of  government  is  the  result  of  that  en- 
tire separation  of  the  legislative  and  executive 
branches  of  the  system  which  is  with  us  so  char- 
acteristically and  essentially  constitutional,  it  is 
exceedingly  interesting  to  inquire  and  important 
to  understand  how  that  separation  came  to  be 
insisted  upon  in  the  making  of  the  Constitution. 
Alexander  Hamilton  has  in  our  own  times,  as 


CONCLUSION.  307 

well  as  before,  been  "  severely  reproached  with 
having  said  that  the  British  government  was  the 
*  best  model  in  existence.'  In  1787  this  was  a 
mere  truism.  However  much  the  men  of  that 
day  differed  they  were  all  agreed  in  despising 
and  distrusting  a  prion  constitutions  and  ideally 
perfect  governments,  fresh  from  the  brains  of  vis- 
ionary enthusiasts,  such  as  sprang  up  rankly  in 
the  soil  of  the  French  revolution.  The  Conven- 
tion of  1787  was  composed  of  very  able  men  of 
the  English-speaking  race.  They  took  the  system 
of  government  with  which  they  had  been  famil- 
iar, improved  it,  adapted  it  to  the  circumstances 
with  which  they  had  to  deal,  and  put  it  into  suc- 
cessful operation.  Hamilton's  plan,  then,  like 
the  others,  was  on  the  British  model,  and  it  did 
not  differ  essentially  in  details  from  that  finally 
adopted."  ^  It  is  needful,  however,  to  remember 
in  this  connection  what  has  already  been  alluded 
to,  that  when  that  convention  was  copying  the 
English  Constitution,  that  Constitution  was  in  a 
stage  of  transition,  and  had  by  no  means  fully 
developed  the  features  which  are  now  recognized 
as  most  characteristic  of  it.  Mr.  Lodge  is  quite 
right  in  saying  that  the  Convention,  in  adapting, 
improved  upon  the  English  Constitution  with 
which  its  members  were  familiar,  —  the  Consti- 

^  H.  C.  "Lodge's  Alexander  Hamilton  (Am.  Statesmen  Series), 
pp.  60,  61. 


808  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

tution  of  George  III.  and  Lord  North,  the  Con, 
stitution  which  had  failed  to  crush  Bute.  It 
could  hardly  be  said  with  equal  confidence,  how- 
ever, that  our  system  as  then  made  was  an 
improvement  upon  that  scheme  of  responsible 
cabinet  government  which  challenges  the  admi- 
ration of  the  world  to-day,  though  it  was  quite 
plainly  a  marked  advance  upon  a  parliament 
of  royal  nominees  and  pensionaries  and  a  secret 
cabinet  of  "  king's  friends."  The  English  con- 
stitution of  that  day  had  a  great  many  features 
which  did  not  invite  republican  imitation.  It 
was  suspected,  if  not  known,  that  the  ministers 
who  sat  in  parliament  were  little  more  than  the 
tools  of  a  ministry  of  royal  favorites  who  were 
kept  out  of  sight  behind  the  strictest  confidences 
of  the  court.  It  was  notorious  that  the  sub- 
servient parliaments  of  the  day  represented  the 
estates  and  the  money  of  the  peers  and  the  in- 
fluence of  the  King  rather  than  the  intelligence 
and  purpose  of  the  nation.  The  whole  "  form 
and  pressure"  of  the  time  illustrated  only  too 
forcibly  Lord  Bute's  sinister  suggestion,  that 
"the  forms  of  a  free  and  the  ends  of  an  arbitrary 
government  are  things  not  altogether  incompat- 
ible." It  was,  therefore,  perfectly  natural  that  the 
warnings  to  be  so  easily  drawn  from  the  sight  of 
a  despotic  monarch  binding  the  usages  and  priv- 
ileges of  self-government  to  the  service  of  his 


CONCLUSION.  309 

own  intemperate  purposes  should  be  given  grave 
heed  by  Americans,  who  were  the  very  persons 
who  had  suffered  most  from  the  existing  abuses. 
It  was  something  more  than  natural  that  the 
Convention  of  1787  should  desire  to  erect  a 
Congress  which  would  not  be  subservient  and  an 
executive  which  could  not  be  despotic.  And  it 
was  equally  to  have  been  expected  that  they 
should  regard  an  absolute  separation  of  these 
two  great  branches  of  the  system  as  the  only 
effectual  means  for  the  accomplishment  of  that 
much  desired  end.  It  was  impossible  that  they 
could  believe  that  executive  and  legislature  could 
be  brought  into  close  relations  of  cooperation  and 
mutual  confidence  without  being  tempted,  nay, 
even  bidden,  to  collude.  How  could  either  main- 
tain its  independence  of  action  unless  each  were 
to  have  the  guaranty  of  the  Constitution  that  its 
own  domain  shoidd  be  absolutely  safe  from  in- 
vasion, its  own  prerogatives  absolutely  free  from 
challenge  ?  "  They  shrank  from  placing  sovereign 
power  anywhere.  They  feared  that  it  would 
generate  tyranny ;  George  III.  had  been  a  tyrant 
to  them,  and  come  what  might  they  would  not 
make  a  George  III."  ^  They  would  conquer,  by 
dividing,  the  power  they  so  much  feared  to  see  in 
any  single  hand. 

"  The  English  Constitution,  in  a  word,"  says 
1  Bagehot,  Eng.  Const.,  p.  293. 


310  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

our  most  astute  English  critic,  "  is  framed  on  the 
principle  of  choosing  a  single  sovereign  author- 
ity, and  making  it  good;  the  American,  upon 
the  principle  of  having  many  sovereign  author- 
ities, and  hoping  that  their  multitude  may  atone 
for  their  inferiority.  The  Americans  now  extol 
their  institutions,  and  so  defraud  themselves  of 
their  due  praise.  But  if  they  had  not  a  genius 
for  politics,  if  they  had  not  a  moderation  in 
action  singularly  curious  where  superficial  speech 
is  so  violent,  if  they  had  not  a  regard  for  law, 
such  as  no  great  people  have  ever  evinced,  and 
infinitely  surpassing  ours,  the  multiplicity  of 
authorities  in  the  American  Constitution  would 
long  ago  have  brought  it  to  a  bad  end.  Sensible 
shareholders,  I  have  heard  a  shrewd  attorney 
say,  can  work  any  deed  of  settlement;  and  so 
the  men  of  Massachusetts  could,  I  believe,  work 
any  constitution."  ^  It  is  not  necessary  to  assent 
to  Mr.  Bagehot's  strictures ;  but  it  is  not  possible 
to  deny  the  clear-sighted  justice  of  this  criticism. 
In  order  to  be  fair  to  the  memory  of  our  great 
constitution-makers,  however,  it  is  necessary  to 
remember  that  when  they  sat  in  convention  in 
Philadelphia  the  English  Constitution,  which  they 
copied,  was  not  the  simple  system  which  was  be- 
fore Mr.  Bagehot's  eyes  when  he  wrote.  Its 
single  sovereign  authority  was  not  then  a  twice- 

1  Bagehot,  Eng.  Const.,  p.  296. 


CONCLUSION.  311 

reformed  House  of  Commons  truly  representative 
of  the  nation  and  readily  obeyed  by  a  responsible 
Ministry.  The  sovereignty  was  at  see-saw  be- 
tween the  throne  and  the  parliament,  —  and  the 
throne-end  of  the  beam  was  generally  uppermost. 
Our  device  of  separated,  individualized  powers 
was  very  much  better  than  a  nominal  sovereignty 
of  the  Commons  which  was  suffered  to  be  over- 
ridden by  force,  fraud,  or  craft,  by  the  real  sov- 
ereignty of  the  King.  The  English  Constitution 
was  at  that  time  in  reality  much  worse  than  our 
own ;  and,  if  it  is  now  superior,  it  is  so  because 
its  growth  has  not  been  hindered  or  destroyed 
by  the  too  tight  ligaments  of  a  written  funda- 
mental law. 

The  natural,  the  inevitable  tendency  of  every 
system  of  self-government  like  our  own  and  the 
British  is  to  exalt  the  representative  body,  the 
people's  parliament,  to  a  position  of  absolute 
supremacy.  That  tendency  has,  I  think,  been 
quite  as  marked  in  our  own  constitutional  his- 
tory as  in  that  of  any  other  country,  though  its 
power  has  been  to  some  extent  neutralized,  and 
its  progress  in  great  part  stayed,  by  those  denials 
of  that  supremacy  which  we  respect  because  they 
are  written  in  our  law.  The  political  law  written 
in  our  hearts  is  here  at  variance  with  that  which 
the  Constitution  sought  to  establish.  A  written 
constitution  may  and  often  will  be  violated  in 


812  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

both  letter  and  spirit  by  a  people  of  energetic 
political  talents  and  a  keen  instinct  for  pro- 
gressive practical  development;  but  so  long  as 
they  adhere  to  the  forms  of  such  a  constitution, 
so  long  as  the  machinery  of  government  supplied 
by  it  is  the  only  machinery  which  the  legal  and 
moral  sense  of  such  a  people  permits  it  to  use, 
its  political  development  must  be  in  many  direc- 
tions narrowly  restricted  because  of  an  insuper- 
able lack  of  open  or  adequate  channels.  Our 
Constitution,  like  every  other  constitution  which 
puts  the  authority  to  make  laws  and  the  duty 
of  controlling  the  public  expenditure  into  the 
hands  of  a  popular  assembly,  practically  sets  that 
assembly  to  rule  the  affairs  of  the  nation  as 
supreme  overlord.  But,  by  separating  it  entirely 
from  its  executive  agencies,  it  deprives  it  of  the 
opportunity  and  means  for  making  its  authority 
complete  and  convenient.  The  constitutional 
machinery  is  left  of  such  a  pattern  that  other 
forces  less  than  that  of  Congress  may  cross  and 
compete  with  Congress,  though  they  are  too 
small  to  overcome  or  long  offset  it ;  and  the  re- 
sult is  simply  an  unpleasant,  wearing  friction 
which,  with  other  adjustments,  more  felicitous 
and  equally  safe,  might  readily  be  avoided. 

Congress,  consequently,  is  still  lingering  and 
chafing  under  just  such  embarrassments  as  made 
the  English  Commons  a  nuisance  both  to  them- 


CONCLUSION.  313 

selves  and  to  everybody  else  immediately  after 
the  Revolution  Settlement  had  given  them  their 
first  sure  promise  of  supremacy.  The  parallel  is 
startlingly  exact.  "  In  outer  seeming  the  Revo- 
lution of  1688  had  only  transferred  the  sover- 
eignty over  England  from  James  to  William 
and  Mary.  In  actual  fact  it  had  given  a  power- 
ful and  decisive  impulse  to  the  great  constitu- 
tional progress  which  was  transferring  the  sover- 
eignty from  the  King  to  the  House  of  Commons. 
From  the  moment  when  its  sole  right  to  tax  the 
nation  was  established  by  the  Bill  of  Rights, 
and  when  its  own  resolve  settled  the  practice  of 
granting  none  but  annual  supplies  to  the  Crown, 
the  House  of  Commons  became  the  supreme 
power  in  the  State.  .  .  .  But  though  the  consti- 
tutional change  was  complete,  the  machinery  of 
government  was  far  from  having  adapted  itself 
to  the  new  conditions  of  political  life  which  such 
a  change  brought  about.  However  powerful  the 
will  of  the  Commons  might  be,  it  had  no  means 
of  bringing  its  will  directly  to  bear  on  the  con- 
trol of  public  affairs.  The  ministers  who  had 
charge  of  them  were  not  its  servants  but  the 
servants  of  the  Crown ;  it  was  from  the  King 
that  they  looked  for  direction,  and  to  the  King 
that  they  held  themselves  responsible.  By  im- 
peachment or  more  indirect  means  the  Commons 
could  force  a  king  to  remove  a  minister  who 


814  COi^GRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

contradicted  their  will ;  but  they  had  no  consti- 
tutional power  to  replace  the  fallen  statesman 
by  a  minister  who  would  carry  out  their  will. 

"  The  result  was  the  growth  of  a  temper  in 
the  Lower  House  which  drove  William  and  his 
ministers  to  despair.  It  became  as  corrupt,  as 
jealous  of  power,  as  fickle  in  its  resolves  and  fac- 
tious in  its  spirit  as  bodies  always  become  whose 
consciousness  of  the  possession  of  power  is  un- 
tempered  by  a  corresponding  consciousness  of 
the  practical  difficulties  or  the  moral  responsibil- 
ities of  the  power  which  they  possess.  It  grum- 
bled .  .  .  and  it  blamed  the  Crown  and  its  min- 
isters for  all  at  which  it  grumbled.  But  it  was 
hard  to  find  out  what  policy  or  measures  it  would 
have  preferred.  Its  mood  changed,  as  William 
bitterly  complained,  with  every  hour.  .  .  .  The 
Houses  were  in  fact  without  the  guidance  of  rec- 
ognized leaders,  without  adequate  information, 
and  destitute  of  that  organization  out  of  which 
alone  a  definite  policy  can  come."  ^ 

The  cure  for  this  state  of  things  which  Sun- 
derland had  the  sagacity  to  suggest,  and  William 
the  wisdom  to  apply,  was  the  mediation  between 
King  and  Commons  of  a  cabinet  representative 
of  the  majority  of  the  popular  chamber,  —  a  first 
but  long  and  decisive  step  towards  responsible 

1  Green  :  Hist,  of  the  English  People  (Harpers'  ed.),  iv.,  pp 
58,  59. 


CONCLUSION.  315 

cabinet  government.  Whether  a  similar  remedy 
would  be  possible  or  desirable  in  our  own  case  it 
is  altogether  aside  from  my  present  purpose  to 
inquire.  I  am  pointing  out  facts,  —  diagnosing, 
not  prescribing  remedies.  My  only  point  just 
now  is,  that  no  one  can  help  being  struck  by  the 
closeness  of  the  likeness  between  the  incipient 
distempers  of  the  first  parliaments  of  William 
and  Mary  and  the  developed  disorders  now  so 
plainly  discernible  in  the  constitution  of  Con- 
gress. Though  honest  and  diligent,  it  is  meddle- 
some and  inefficient ;  and  it  is  meddlesome  and 
inefficient  for  exactly  the  same  reasons  that  made 
it  natural  that  the  post-Revolutionary  parlia- 
ments should  exhibit  like  clumsiness  and  like 
temper :  namely,  because  it  is  "  without  the 
guidance  of  recognized  leaders,  without  adequate 
information,  and  destitute  of  that  organization 
out  of  which  alone  a  definite  policy  can  come." 

The  dangers  of  this  serious  imperfection  in 
our  governmental  machinery  have  not  been 
clearly  demonstrated  in  our  experience  hitherto  ; 
but  now  their  delayed  fulfillment  seems  to  be 
close  at  hand.  The  plain  tendency  is  towards  a 
centralization  of  all  the  greater  powers  of  gov- 
ernment in  the  hands  of  the  federal  authorities, 
and  towards  the  practical  confirmation  of  those 
prerogatives  of  supreme  overlordship  which  Con- 
gress has  been  gradually  arrogating  to   itself. 


816  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

The  central  government  is  constantly  becoming 
stronger  and  more  active,  and  Congress  is  es- 
tablishing itseK  as  the  one  sovereign  authority  in 
that  government.  In  constitutional  theory  and 
in  the  broader  features  of  past  practice,  ours  has 
been  what  Mr.  Bagehot  has  called  a  "  compos- 
ite "  government.  Besides  state  and  federal 
authorities  to  dispute  as  to  sovereignty,  there 
have  been  within  the  federal  system  itself  rival 
and  irreconcilable  powers.  But  gradually  the 
strong  are  overcoming  the  weak.  If  the  signs 
of  the  times  are  to  be  credited,  we  are  fast  ap- 
proaching an  adjustment  of  sovereignty  quite  as 
"  simple  "  as  need  be.  Congress  is  not  only  to 
retain  the  authority  it  already  possesses,  but  is 
to  be  brought  again  and  again  face  to  face  with 
still  greater  demands  upon  its  energy,  its  wis- 
dom, and  its  conscience,  is  to  have  ever-widening 
duties  and  responsibilities  thrust  upon  it,  with- 
out being  granted  a  moment's  opportunity  to 
look  back  from  the  plough  to  which  it  has  set 
its  hands. 

The  sphere  and  influence  of  national  adminis- 
tration and  national  legislation  are  widening 
rapidly.  Our  populations  are  growing  at  such  a 
rate  that  one's  reckoning  staggers  at  counting 
the  possible  millions  that  may  have  a  home  and 
a  work  on  this  continent  ere  fifty  more  years 
shall  have  filled  their  short  span.    The  East  will 


CONCLUSION.  317 

not  always  be  the  centre  of  national  life.  The 
South  is  fast  accumulating  wealth,  and  will 
faster  recover  influence.  The  West  has  already 
achieved  a  greatness  which  no  man  can  gainsaj'^, 
and  has  in  store  a  power  of  future  growth  which 
no  man  can  estimate.  Whether  these  sections 
are  to  be  harmonious  or  dissentient  depends 
almost  entirely  upon  the  methods  and  policy  of 
the  federal  government.  If  that  government  be 
not  careful  to  keep  within  its  own  proper  sphere 
and  prudent  to  square  its  policy  by  rules  of  na- 
tional welfare,  sectional  lines  must  and  will  be 
known  ;  citizens  of  one  part  of  the  country  may 
look  with  jealousy  and  even  with  hatred  upon 
their  fellow-citizens  of  another  part ;  and  faction 
must  tear  and  dissension  distract  a  country  which 
Providence  would  bless,  but  which  man  may 
curse.  The  government  of  a  country  so  vast 
and  various  must  be  strong,  prompt,  wieldy,  and 
efficient.  Its  strength  must  consist  in  the  cer- 
tainty and  uniformity  of  its  purposes,  in  its  ac- 
cord with  national  sentiment,  in  its  unhesitating 
action,  and  in  its  honest  aims.  It  must  be  stead- 
ied and  approved  by  open  administration  dili- 
gently obedient  to  the  more  permanent  judg- 
ments of  public  opinion ;  and  its  only  active 
agency,  its  representative  chambers,  must  be 
equipped  with  something  besides  abundant  pow- 
ers of  legislation. 


318  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

As  at  present  constituted,  the  federal  govern- 
ment lacks  strength  because  its  powers  are  di- 
vided, lacks  promptness  because  its  authorities 
are  multiplied,  lacks  wieldiness  because  its  proc- 
esses are  roundabout,  lacks  efficiency  because  its 
responsibility  is  indistinct  and  its  action  with- 
out competent  direction.  It  is  a  government  in 
which  every  officer  may  talk  about  every  other 
officer's  duty  without  having  to  render  strict  ac- 
count for  not  doing  his  own,  and  in  which  the 
masters  are  held  in  check  and  offered  contradic- 
tion by  the  servants.  Mr.  Lowell  has  called  it 
"  government  by  declamation."  Talk  is  not  so- 
bered by  any  necessity  imposed  upon  those  who 
utter  it  to  suit  their  actions  to  their  words. 
There  is  no  day  of  reckoning  for  words  spoken. 
The  speakers  of  a  congressional  majority  may, 
without  risk  of  incurring  ridicule  or  discredit, 
condemn  what  their  own  Committees  are  doing ; 
and  the  spokesmen  of  a  minority  may  urge  what 
contrary  courses  they  please  with  a  well-grounded 
assurance  that  what  they  say  will  be  forgotten 
before  they  can  be  called  upon  to  put  it  into 
practice.  Nobody  stands  sponsor  for  the  policy 
of  the  government.  A  dozen  men  originate  it  ; 
a  dozen  compromises  twist  and  alter  it ;  a  dozen 
offices  whose  names  are  scarcely  known  outside 
of  Washington  put  it  into  execution. 

This  is  the  defect  to  which,  it  wiU  be  observed, 


CONCLUSION.  319 

I  am  constantly  recurring;  to  which  I  recur 
again  and  again  because  every  examination  of 
the  system,  at  whatsoever  point  begun,  leads  in- 
evitably to  it  as  to  a  central  secret.  It  is  the 
defect  which  interprets  all  the  rest,  because  it  is 
their  common  product.  It  is  exemplified  in  the 
extraordinary  fact  that  the  utterances  of  the 
Press  have  greater  weight  and  are  accorded 
greater  credit,  though  the  Press  speaks  entirely 
without  authority,  than  the  utterances  of  Con- 
gress, though  Congress  possesses  all  authority. 
The  gossip  of  the  street  is  listened  to  rather 
than  the  words  of  the  law-makers.  The  editor 
directs  public  opinion,  the  congressman  obeys 
it.  When  a  presidential  election  is  at  hand,  in- 
deed, the  words  of  the  political  orator  gain  tem- 
porary heed.  He  is  recognized  as  an  authority 
in  the  arena,  as  a  professional  critic  competent 
to  discuss  the  good  and  bad  points,  and  to  fore- 
cast the  fortunes  of  the  contestants.  There  is 
something  definite  in  hand,  and  he  is  known  to 
have  studied  all  its  bearings.  He  is  one  of  the 
managers,  or  is  thought  to  be  well  acquainted 
with  the  management.  He  speaks  "  from  the 
card."  But  let  him  talk,  not  about  candidates, 
but  about  measures  or  about  the  policy  of  the 
government,  and  his  observations  sink  at  once 
to  the  level  of  a  mere  individual  expression  of 
opinion,  to  which  his  political  occupations  seem 


320  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

to  add  very  little  weight.  It  is  universally  rec- 
ognized that  he  speaks  without  authority,  about 
things  which  his  vote  may  help  to  settle,  but 
about  which  several  hundred  other  men  have 
votes  quite  as  influential  as  his  own.  Legisla- 
tion is  not  a  thing  to  be  known  beforehand.  It 
depends  upon  the  conclusions  of  sundry  Stand- 
ing Committees.  It  is  an  aggregate,  not  a  sim- 
ple, production.  It  is  impossible  to  tell  how 
many  persons'  opinions  and  influences  have  en- 
tered into  its  composition.  It  is  even  impracti- 
cable to  determine  from  this  year's  law-making 
what  next  year's  will  be  like. 

Speaking,  therefore,  without  authority,  the 
political  orator  speaks  to  little  purpose  when  he 
speaks  about  legislation.  The  papers  do  not  re- 
port him  carefully ;  and  their  editorials  seldom 
take  any  color  from  his  arguments.  The  Press, 
being  anonymous  and  representing  a  large  force 
of  inquisitive  news-hunters,  is  much  more  power- 
ful than  he  chiefly  because  it  is  impersonal  and 
seems  to  represent  a  wider  and  more  thorough 
range  of  information.  At  the  worst,  it  can  easily 
compete  with  any  ordinary  individual.  Its  indi- 
vidual opinion  is  quite  sure  to  be  esteemed  as 
worthy  of  attention  as  any  other  individual 
opinion.  And,  besides,  it  is  almost  everywhere 
strong  enough  to  deny  currency  to  the  speeches 
of  individuals  whom  it  does  not  care  to  report 


CONCLUSION.  321 

It  goes  to  its  audience  ;  the  orator  must  depend 
upon  his  audience  coming  to  him.  It  can  be 
heard  at  every  fireside  ;  the  orator  can  be  heard 
only  on  the  platform  or  the  hustings.  There  is 
no  imperative  demand  on  the  part  of  the  read- 
ing public  in  this  country  that  the  newspapers 
shoiJd  report  political  speeches  in  full.  On  the 
contrary,  most  readers  would  be  disgusted  at 
finding  their  favorite  columns  so  filled  up.  By 
giving  even  a  notice  of  more  than  an  item's 
length  to  such  a  speech,  an  editor  runs  the  risk 
of  being  denounced  as  dull.  And  I  believe  that 
the  position  of  the  American  Press  is  in  this  re- 
gard quite  singidar.  The  English  newspapers 
are  so  far  from  being  thus  independent  and  self- 
sufficient  powers,  —  a  law  unto  themselves,  —  in 
the  politics  of  the  empire  that  they  are  con- 
strained to  do  homage  to  the  political  orator 
whether  they  will  or  no.  Conservative  editors 
must  spread  before  their  readers  verbatim  re- 
ports not  only  of  the  speeches  of  the  leaders  of 
their  own  party,  but  also  of  the  principal 
speeches  of  the  leading  Liberal  orators ;  and 
Liberal  journals  have  no  choice  but  to  print 
every  syllable  of  the  more  important  public  ut- 
terances of  the  Conservative  leaders.  The  nation 
insists  upon  knowing  what  its  public  men  have 
to  say,  even  when  it  is  not  so  well  said  as  the 
newspapers  which  report  them  could  have  said  it. 

21 


322  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

There  are  only  two  things  which  can  give  any 
man  a  right  to  expect  that  when  he  speaks  the 
whole  country  will  listen :  namely,  genius  and 
authority.  Probably  no  one  will  ever  contend 
that  Sir  Stafford  Northcote  was  an  orator,  or 
even  a  good  speaker.  But  by  proof  of  unblem- 
ished character,  and  by  assiduous,  conscientious, 
and  able  public  service  he  rose  to  be  the  recog- 
nized leader  of  his  party  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons ;  and  it  is  simply  because  he  speaks  as  one 
having  authority,  —  and  not  as  the  scribes  of 
the  Press,  —  that  he  is  as  sure  of  a  heedful  hear- 
ing as  is  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  adds  genius  and 
noble  oratory  to  the  authority  of  established 
leadership.  The  leaders  of  English  public  life 
have  something  besides  weight  of  character, 
prestige  of  personal  service  and  experience,  and 
authority  of  individual  opinion  to  exalt  them 
above  the  anonymous  Press.  They  have  definite 
authority  and  power  in  the  actual  control  of 
government.  They  are  directly  commissioned  to 
control  the  policy  of  the  administration.  They 
stand  before  the  country,  in  parliament  and  out 
of  it,  as  the  responsible  chiefs  of  their  parties. 
It  is  their  business  to  lead  those  parties,  and  it 
is  the  matter-of-course  custom  of  the  constituen- 
cies to  visit  upon  the  parties  the  punishment  due 
for  the  mistakes  made  by  these  chiefs.  They 
are  at  once  the  servants  and  scapegoats  of  their 
parties. 


CONCLUSION.  323 

It  is  these  well-established  privileges  and 
responsibilities  of  theirs  which  make  their  utter- 
ances considered  worth  hearing,  —  nay,  neces- 
sary to  be  heard  and  pondered.  Their  public 
speeches  are  their  parties'  platforms.  What  the 
leader  promises  his  party  stands  ready  to  do, 
should  it  be  intrusted  with  office.  This  cer- 
tainty of  audience  and  of  credit  gives  spice  to 
what  such  leaders  have  to  say,  and  lends  eleva- 
tion to  the  tone  of  all  their  public  utterances. 
They  for  the  most  part  avoid  buncombe,  which 
would  be  difficult  to  translate  into  Acts  of  Par- 
liament. It  is  easy  to  see  how  great  an  advan- 
tage their  station  and  influence  give  them  over 
our  own  public  men.  We  have  no  such  respon- 
sible party  leadership  on  this  side  the  sea ;  we 
are  very  shy  about  conferring  much  authority 
on  anybody,  and  the  consequence  is  that  it 
requires  something  very  like  genius  to  secure  for 
any  one  of  our  statesmen  a  universally  recog- 
nized right  to  be  heard  and  to  create  an  ever- 
active  desire  to  hear  him  whenever  he  talks,  not 
about  candidates,  but  about  measures.  An  ex- 
traordinary gift  of  eloquence,  such  as  not  every 
generation  may  hope  to  see,  will  always  hold, 
because  it  will  always  captivate,  the  attention  of 
the  people.  But  genius  and  eloquence  are  too 
rare  to  be  depended  upon  for  the  instruction 
and  guidance   of  the   masses ;    and   since   our 


824  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

politicians  lack  the  credit  of  authority  and  re- 
sponsibility, they  must  give  place,  except  at 
election-time,  to  the  Press,  which  is  everywhere, 
generally  well-informed,  and.  always  talking.  It 
is  necessarily  "  government  by  declamation  "  and 
editorial-writing. 

It  is  probably  also  this  lack  of  leadership 
which  gives  to  our  national  parties  their  curious, 
conglomerate  character.  It  would  seem  to  be 
scarcely  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  they  are 
homogeneous  only  in  name.  Neither  of  the  two 
principal  parties  is  of  one  mind  with  itself. 
Each  tolerates  all  sorts  of  difference  of  creed 
and  variety  of  aim  within  its  own  ranks.  Each 
pretends  to  the  same  purposes  and  permits 
among  its  partisans  the  same  contradictions  to 
those  purposes.  They  are  grouped  around  no 
legislative  leaders  whose  capacity  has  been  test- 
ed and  to  whose  opinions  they  loyally  adhere. 
They  are  like  armies  without  officers,  engaged 
upon  a  campaign  which  has  no  great  cause  at  its 
back.  Their  names  and  traditions,  not  their 
hopes  and  policy,  keep  them  together. 

It  is  to  this  fact,  as  well  as  to  short  terms 
which  allow  little  time  for  differences  to  come  to 
a  head,  that  the  easy  agreement  of  congressional 
majorities  should  be  attributed.  In  other  like 
assemblies  the  harmony  of  majorities  is  con- 
stantly liable   to  disturbance.      Ministers  lose 


CONCLUSION.  325 

their  following  and  find  their  friends  falling 
away  in  the  midst  of  a  session.  But  not  so  in 
Congress.  There,  although  the  majority  is  fre- 
quently simply  conglomerate,  made  up  of  fac- 
tions not  a  few,  and  bearing  in  its  elements 
every  seed  of  discord,  the  harmony  of  party 
voting  seldom,  if  ever,  suffers  an  interruption. 
So  far  as  outsiders  can  see,  legislation  generally 
flows  placidly  on,  and  the  majority  easily  has 
its  own  way,  acting  with  a  sort  of  matter-of- 
course  unanimity,  with  no  suspicion  of  individual 
freedom  of  action.  Whatever  revolts  may  be 
threatened  or  accomplished  in  the  ranks  of  the 
party  outside  the  House  at  the  polls,  its  power  is 
never  broken  inside  the  House.  This  is  doubt- 
less due  in  part  to  the  fact  that  there  is  no 
freedom  of  debate  in  the  House ;  but  there  can 
be  no  question  that  it  is  principally  due  to  the 
fact  that  debate  is  without  aim,  just  because 
legislation  is  without  consistency.  Legislation 
is  conglomerate.  The  absence  of  any  concert  of 
action  amongst  the  Committees  leaves  legislation 
with  scarcely  any  trace  of  determinate  party 
courses.  No  two  schemes  pull  together.  If 
there  is  a  coincidence  of  principle  between 
several  bills  of  the  same  session,  it  is  generally 
accidental;  and  the  confusion  of  policy  which 
prevents  intelligent  cooperation  also,  of  course, 
prevents    intelligent  differences   and   divisions. 


B26  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

There  is  never  a  transfer  of  power  from  one 
party  to  the  other  during  a  session,  because  such 
a  transfer  would  mean  ahnost  nothing.  The 
majority  remains  of  one  mind  so  long  as  a  Con- 
gress lives,  because  its  mind  is  very  vaguely 
ascertained,  and  its  power  of  planning  a  split 
consequently  very  limited.  It  has  no  common 
mind,  and  if  it  had,  has  not  the  machinery  for 
changing  it.  It  is  led  by  a  score  or  two  of 
Committees  whose  composition  must  remain  the 
same  to  the  end  ;  and  who  are  too  numerous,  as 
well  as  too  disconnected,  to  fight  against.  It 
stays  on  one  side  because  it  hardly  knows  where 
the  boundaries  of  that  side  are  or  how  to  cross 
them. 

Moreover,  there  is  a  certain  well-known  piece 
of  congressional  machinery  long  ago  invented 
and  applied  for  the  special  purpose  of  keeping 
both  majority  and  minority  compact.  The  legis- 
lative caucus  has  almost  as  important  a  part  in 
our  system  as  have  the  Standing  Committees, 
and  deserves  as  close  study  as  they.  Its  func- 
tions are  much  more  easily  understood  in  all 
their  bearings  than  those  of  the  Committees, 
however,  because  they  ar4  much  simpler.  The 
caucus  is  meant  as  an  antidote  to  the  Commit- 
tees. It  is  designed  to  supply  the  cohesive 
principle  which  the  multiplicity  and  mutual 
independence  of  the  Committees  so  powerfully 


CONCLUSION.  327 

tend  to  destroy.  HaAdng  no  Prime  Minister  to 
confer  with  about  the  policy  of  the  government, 
as  they  see  members  of  parliament  doing,  our 
congressmen  confer  with  each  other  in  caucus. 
Rather  than  imprudently  expose  to  the  world 
the  differences  of  opinion  threatened  or  devel- 
oped among  its  members,  each  party  hastens  to 
remove  disrupting  debate  from  the  floor  of  Con- 
gress, where  the  speakers  might  too  hastily 
commit  themselves  to  insubordination,  to  quiet 
conferences  behind  closed  doors,  where  fright- 
ened scruples  may  be  reassured  and  every  disa- 
greement healed  with  a  salve  of  compromise  or 
subdued  with  the  whip  of  political  expediency. 
The  caucus  is  the  drilling-ground  of  the  party. 
There  its  discipline  is  renewed  and  strengthened, 
its  uniformity  of  step  and  gesture  regained. 
The  voting  and  speaking  in  the  House  are  gener- 
ally merely  the  movements  of  a  sort  of  dress 
parade,  for  which  the  exercises  of  the  caucus 
are  designed  to  prepare.  It  is  easy  to  see  how 
difficult  it  would  be  for  the  party  to  keep  its 
head  amidst  the  confused  cross-movements  of 
the  Committees  without  thus  now  and  again 
pulling  itself  together  in  caucus,  where  it  can 
ask  itself  its  own  mind  and  pledge  itself  anew 
to  eternal  agreement. 

The  credit  of  inventing  this  device  is  probably 
due   to  the  Democrats.     They   appear  to  have 


828  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

used  it  so  early  as  the  second  session  of  the 
eighth  Congress.  Speaking  of  that  session,  a 
reliable  authority  says:  "During  this  session 
of  Congress  there  was  far  less  of  free  and  inde- 
pendent discussion  on  the  measures  proposed 
by  the  friends  of  the  administration  than  had 
been  previously  practiced  in  both  branches  of 
the  national  legislature.  It  appeared  that  on 
the  most  important  subjects,  the  course  adopted 
by  the  majority  was  the  effect  of  caucus  arrange- 
ment, or,  in  other  words,  had  been  previously 
agreed  upon  at  meetings  of  the  Democratic 
members  held  in  private.  Thus  the  legislation 
of  Congress  was  constantly  swayed  by  a  party 
following  feelings  and  pledges  rather  than  ac- 
cording to  sound  reason  or  personal  conviction."  ^ 
The  censure  implied  in  this  last  sentence  may 
have  seemed  righteous  at  the  time  when  such 
caucus  pledges  were  in  disfavor  as  new-fangled 
shackles,  but  it  would  hardly  be  accepted  as  just 
by  the  intensely  practical  politicians  of  to-day. 
They  would  probably  prefer  to  put  it  thus : 
That  the  silvern  speech  spent  in  caucus  secures 
the  golden  silence  maintained  on  the  floor  of 
Congress,  making  each  party  rich  in  concord 
and  happy  in  cooperation. 

The  fact  that  makes  this  defense  of  the  caucus 
aot  altogether  conclusive  is  that  it  is  shielded 

1  Statesman's  Manual,  i.  p.  244. 


CONCLUSION.  329 

from  all  responsibility  by  its  sneaking  privacy. 
It  has  great  power  without  any  balancing  weight 
of  accountability.  Probably  its  debates  would 
constitute  interesting  and  instructive  reading  for 
the  public,  were  they  published ;  but  they  never 
get  out  except  in  rumors  of ter  rehearsed  and  as 
often  amended.  They  are,  one  may  take  it  for 
granted,  much  more  candid  and  go  much  nearer 
the  political  heart  of  the  questions  discussed  than 
anything  that  is  ever  said  openly  in  Congress  to 
the  reporters'  gallery.  They  approach  matters 
without  masks  and  handle  them  without  gloves. 
It  might  hurt,  but  it  would  enlighten  us  to  hear 
them.  As  it  is,  however,  there  is  unhappily  no 
ground  for  denying  their  power  to  override 
sound  reason  and  personal  conviction.  The  cau- 
cus cannot  always  silence  or  subdue  a  large  and 
influential  minority  of  dissentients,  but  its  whip 
seldom  fails  to  reduce  individual  malcontents 
and  mutineers  into  submission.  There  is  no 
place  in  congressional  jousts  for  the  free  lance. 
The  man  who  disobeys  his  party  caucus  is  under- 
stood to  disavow  his  party  allegiance  altogether, 
and  to  assume  that  dangerous  neutrality  which 
is  so  apt  to  degenerate  into  mere  caprice,  and 
which  is  almost  sure  to  destroy  his  influence  by 
bringing  him  under  the  suspicion  of  being  unre- 
liable, —  a  suspicion  always  conclusively  damn< 
ing  in  practical  life.     Any  individual,  or  any 


830  CONGRESSIONAL  GOVERNMENT. 

minority  of  weak  numbers  or  small  influence, 
who  has  the  temerity  to  neglect  the  decisions  of 
the  caucus  is  sure,  if  the  offense  be  often  repeat- 
ed, or  even  once  committed  upon  an  important 
issue,  to  be  read  out  of  the  party,  almost  with- 
out chance  of  reinstatement.  And  every  one 
knows  that  nothing  can  be  accomplished  in 
politics  by  mere  disagreement.  The  only  privi- 
lege such  recalcitrants  gain  is  the  privilege  of 
disagreement ;  they  are  forever  shut  out  from 
the  privilege  of  confidential  cooperation.  They 
have  chosen  the  helplessness  of  a  faction. 

It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that,  unfortu- 
nate as  the  necessity  is  for  the  existence  of  such 
powers  as  those  of  the  caucus,  that  necessity 
actually  exists  and  cannot  be  neglected.  Against 
the  fatal  action  of  so  many  elements  of  disin- 
tegration it  would  seem  to  be  imperatively  need- 
ful that  some  energetic  element  of  cohesion 
should  be  provided.  It  is  doubtful  whether  in 
any  other  nation,  with  a  shorter  inheritance  of 
political  instinct,  parties  could  long  successfully 
resist  the  centrifugal  forces  of  the  committee 
system  with  only  the  varying  attraction  of  the 
caucus  to  detain  them.  The  wonder  is  that, 
despite  the  forcible  and  unnatural  divorcement 
of  legislation  and  administration  and  the  conse- 
quent distraction  of  legislation  from  all  atten- 
tion to  anything  like  an  intelligent  planning  and 


CONCLUSION.  331 

superintendence  of  policy,  we  are  not  cursed 
with  as  many  factions  as  now  almost  hopelessly 
confuse  French  politics.  That  we  have  had, 
and  continue  to  have,  only  two  national  parties 
of  national  importance  or  real  power  is  fortunate 
rather  than  natural.  Their  names  stand  for  a 
fact,  but  scarcely  for  a  reason. 

An  intelligent  observer  of  our  politics^  has 
declared  that  there  is  in  the  United  States  "  a 
class,  including  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands 
of  the  best  men  in  the  country,  who  think  it 
possible  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of  good  government 
without  working  for  them."  Every  one  who  has 
seen  beyond  the  outside  of  our  American  life 
must  recognize  the  truth  of  this  ;  to  explain  it  is 
to  state  the  sum  of  all  the  most  valid  criticisms 
of  congressional  government.  Public  opinion 
has  no  easy  vehicle  for  its  judgments,  no  quick 
channels  for  its  action.  Nothing  about  the  sys- 
tem is  direct  and  simple.  Authority  is  perplex- 
ingly  subdivided  and  distributed,  and  responsi- 
bility has  to  be  hunted  down  in  out-of-the-way 
comers.  So  that  the  sum  of  the  whole  matter 
is  that  the  means  of  working  for  the  fruits  of 
good  government  are  not  readily  to  be  found. 
The  average  citizen  may  be  excused  for  esteem- 
ing government  at  best  but  a  haphazard  affair, 
upon  which  his  vote  and  all  of  his  influence  can 
1  Mr.  Dale,  of  Birmingham. 


832  CONGRESSIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

have  but  little  effect.  How  is  his  choice  of  a 
representative  in  Congress  to  affect  the  policy  of 
the  country  as  regards  the  questions  in  which  he 
is  most  interested,  if  the  man  for  whom  he  votes 
has  no  chance  of  getting  on  the  Standing  Com- 
mittee which  has  virtual  charge  of  those  ques- 
tions ?  How  is  it  to  make  any  difference  who 
is  chosen  President?  Has  the  President  any 
very  great  authority  in  matters  of  vital  policy  ? 
It  seems  almost  a  thing  of  despair  to  get  any 
assurance  that  any  vote  he  may  cast  will  even 
in  an  infinitesimal  degree  affect  the  essential 
courses  of  administration.  There  are  so  many 
cooks  mixing  their  ingredients  in  the  national 
broth  that  it  seems  hopeless,  this  thing  of  chang- 
ing one  cook  at  a  time. 

The  charm  of  our  constitutional  ideal  has  now 
been  long  enough  wound  up  to  enable  sober  men 
who  do  not  believe  in  political  witchcraft  to 
judge  what  it  has  accomplished,  and  is  likely 
still  to  accomplish,  without  further  winding. 
The  Constitution  is  not  honored  by  blind  wor- 
ship. The  more  open-eyed  we  become,  as  a 
nation,  to  its  defects,  and  the  prompter  we  grow 
in  applying  with  the  unhesitating  courage  of 
conviction  all  thoroughly-tested  or  well-consid- 
ered expedients  necessary  to  make  self-govern- 
ment among  us  a  straightforward  thing  of  sim« 


coNCLUswy.  333 

pie  method,  single,  unstinted  power,  and  clear  re- 
sponsibility, the  nearer  will  we  approach  to  the 
sound  sense  and  practical  genius  of  the  great 
and  honorable  statesmen  of  1787.  And  the 
first  step  towards  emancipation  from  the  timid- 
ity and  false  pride  which  have  led  us  to  seek  to 
thrive  despite  the  defects  of  our  national  system 
rather  than  seem  to  deny  its  perfection  is  a 
fearless  criticism  of  that  system.  When  we 
shall  have  examined  all  its  parts  without  senti- 
ment, and  gauged  all  its  functions  by  the  stand- 
ards of  practical  common  sense,  we  shall  have 
established  anew  our  right  to  the  claim  of  pcliti- 
cal  sagacity ;  and  it  will  remain  only  to  act 
intelligently  upon  what  our  opened  eyes  i»^ve 
Been  in  order  to  prove  again  the  justice  of  qu? 
claim  to  political  genius. 


IKDEX. 


Aberdeen,  Lord,  and  civil  serrice  re- 
lorm,  285. 

Accounts,  British  public,  how  au- 
dited, 144,  liow  kept,  145  ;  French 
public,  how  kept,  145 ;  federal, 
how  audited,  175-179;  how  kept 
formerly,  179. 

Adams,  John,  on  the  constitutional 
balances,  12,  13 ;  influence  of,  as 
President,  41 ;  claim  of  originality 
for  the  Constitution,  55,  249. 

Adams,  Samuel,  209. 

"Address"  of  early  Presidents  to 
Senate,  239. 

Administration,  talents  for,  not  en- 
couraged in  U.  S.,  199,  200  ;  ques- 
tions of,  now  predominant,  203 ; 
divorced  from  legislation  in  U.S., 
251-253 ;  training  necessary  for, 
255,  256  ;  contrasted  with  legisla- 
tion, 273,  274  ;  not  less  important 
than  legi.slation,  297 ;  must  be  de- 
bated, 302  ;  tendency  towards  wi- 
dening sphere  of  national,  316, 
817. 

Alabama  claims,  in  Senate,  51. 

Alien  and  Sedition  Laws,  21. 

Amendment,  difficulty  of  constitu- 
tional, 242,  243  ;  extra- constitu- 
tional, 243. 

"American  system"  of  protective 
tariflV,  167. 

Appointing  power  of  Speaker  of 
House,  103 ;  history  of,  of  Speaker, 
104  ;  accustomed  use  of,  for  party 
ends,  108. 

Appropriation,  bills,  "  general  " 
150  ;  former  methods  of,  151 ; 
stinginess  of  Congress  in,  152, 
159;  bills,  reported  at  any  time, 
153;  bills,  specially  debated,  78, 
154,  155,  183,  181;  bills,  in  the 
Senate,  155-158. 

Appropriations,  debate  of,  78,  154, 
166, 183, 184  i  "  white-button  man- 


darins "  of  Committee  on,  111 ; 
Committee  on,  consider  estimates, 
149  ;  "  permanent,"  152,  153 ; 
Committee  on,  controls  only  an- 
nual grants,  153;  semi-annual, 
•159  ;  Committees  on,  relations  be- 
tween, and  financial  officers  of  the 
govt.,  160-164 ;  reports  of  Commit- 
tee on,  preferred  to  reports  of  Com- 
mittee of  Ways  and  Means,  174, 
183, 184. 
Audit  of  public  accounts  in  Eng- 
land, 144;  in  U.  S.,  175-179. 

Bagehot,  ^Valter,  on  living  reality 
and  paper  description  of  English 
Constitution,  10;  description  of 
Parliament  by,  applied  to  Con- 
gress, 44  :  on  time  required  for 
opinions,  130  ;  on  public  opinion, 
187 ;  on  House  of  Lords,  220 ;  on 
bicameral  system,  221,  222;  on 
technicalities  of  constitutional  in- 
terpretation in  U.  S.,  243;  on 
questions  asked  in  the  Commons, 
300;  on  influence  of  Geo.  III.  on 
Constitution  of  U.  S.,  309;  oa 
multiplicity  of  authorities  in 
American  Constitution,  303,  310. 

Balance,  between  state  and  federal 
powers.  See  '  Federal  and  State 
governments;'  between  judiciary 
and  other  branches  of  federal 
govt.,  34  et  sfq. ;  between  state 
legislatures  and  the  Senate,  40  ;  of 
the  people  against  their  represen- 
tatives, 40  ;  of  presidential  electors 
against  the  people,  40  ;  between 
Executive  and  Congress,  41 ;  be- 
tween Senate  and  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives, real,  228. 

Balances  of  the  Constitution,  ideal, 
52;  present  state  of,  63;  at  vari- 
ance witU  inevitable  tendency  t4 
exalt  representative  body,  ull. 


336 


INDEX. 


Bank  of  the  XT.  S.,  22. 

Bicameral  system,  utility  of  a,  219 
et  aeq. 

Bill  of  Rights,  and  the  Constitution 
of  the  li.  S.,  7. 

Bills,  introduced  on  Mondays,  66; 
early  course  of,  in  House,  67 ;  all 
committed,  67  ;  doubt  in  commit- 
ting some,  67,  68  ;  fate  of  com- 
mitted, R9  ;  passed  under  suspen- 
sion of  Rules,  111,  112  :  of  private 
members  in  House  of  Commons, 
120,  121. 

Bismarck,  Count,  stands  for  govt,  in 
Germany,  59,  208. 

"  Bland  Silver  Bill,"  185. 

Bright,  John,  198. 

British  govt,  by  party,  117  et  seq. 

Buckle,  on  use  of  legislation,  295. 

Budget,  controlled,  not  originated, 
by  British  House  of  Commons, 
137 ;  preparation  and  submission 
of,  by  English  Chancellor  of  Ex- 
chequer, 140-142 ;  both  originated 
and  controlled  by  Congress,  148, 
191. 

Burke,  Edmund,  209 ;  on  value  of 
House  of  Commons,  227. 

Cabinet,  discords  in  first,  2 ;  change 
in  character  of,  45  el  seq. ;  real  ex- 
ecutiveequality  of,  with  President, 
46,  257 ;  diniini.«hing  power  of, 
to  control  policy,  4(i,  47,  262,  269  ; 
parliamentary  position  of  British, 
95 ;  British,  a  single  Standing 
Committee,  117;  irresponsibility 
of,  in  U.  S.,  in  matters  of  finance, 
164  ;  an  integral  part  of  the  Ex- 
ecutive, 257;  limits  to  independ- 
ence of,  258 ;  relations  of,  to  Presi- 
dent, 258, 259  ;  ministerial,  rather 
than  political,  officers  in  U.  S., 
261,  264  et  seq.,  291;  duties  of, 
supervised  by  Standing  Commit- 
tees, 202  ;  in  the  leadinr^-strings  of 
Congress,  262, 266  ;  fixed  terms  of, 
261,  264  et  seq.  ;  represent  whom? 
265,  266  ;  party  relations  of,  269  ; 
easily  evade  many  questions  and 
commands  of  Congress,  271,272; 
indistinct  responsibility  of,  282 ; 
history  of  responsibility  of  British, 
286  et  seq. ;  status  of,  in  American 
constitutional  system,  291. 

Calhoun,  J.  C,  89,218. 

Call  of  States  for  bills,  66  ;  of  Stand- 
ing Committees  for  reports,  72,  73. 

Canning,  George,  209. 

Caucus,    failure    of    congressional 


nominating,  247 ;  legislatiTe,  dis* 
ciplines  parties  in  Congress,  326, 
327  ;  invention  of,  by  Democrats, 
327,  328 ;  privacy  and  irrespon- 
sibility of  legislative,  328,  329; 
methods  and  constraints  of  legis- 
lative, 329,  330  ;  necessity  for  leg- 
islative, 330. 

Centralization,  present  tendency 
towards,  in  federal  govt,  and 
Congress,  53,  315,  316 :  questions 
which  seem  to  necessitate,  54. 

Chairman  of  Standing  Committees,. 

fovt.  by,  102  ;  elders  of  Congress, 
02;  relation.x  of,  to  each  other, 
102,  103;  limits  to  leadership  of 
each  of  the,  205. 

Chatham,  Earl  of,  209,  258. 

Civil  Rights  Act,  33,  n. 

Civil  Service  Reform,  and  usurpa- 
tions of  Senate,  49,  236  et  seq.  ; 
hindered  by  institutional  causes 
in  U.  S.,  285,  290 ;  history  of,  in 
Great  Britain,  2S5  et  seq. ;  history 
of,  in  U.  S.,  289,  290;  conditions 
precedent  to,  290. 

Clay,  Henrv,  89,  218,  252. 

Cioture  in  French  Assembly,  126. 

Cobden,  Richard,  198. 

Coinage  Act  of  1873,  185. 

Commerce,  federal  power  over,  30, 
31 ;  former  control  of  appropria- 
tions for  internal  improvements 
by  Committee  on,  167. 

Commission,  legislative,  proposed  by 
J.  S.  Mill,  115,  129,  192  ;  the  most 
effective  legislative,  192. 

Committee,  "  Executive,"  proposed 
<lor  House  of  Representatives,  114. 

Committees,  select,  67. 

Committees,  Standing,  government 
by,  56 ;  chairmen  of,  leaders  of 
House,  60  ;  chairmen  of,  do  not 
consult  or  cooperate,  61  ;  for  every 
topic  of  legislation,  61  ;  served  by 
rules  of  House,  64,  71 ;  number 
and  u.ses  of,  67,  68;  consider  all 
bills,  67  ;  overlapping  jurisdiction 
of,  68  ;  cannot  reject  bills,  69 ; 
neglect  of,  to  report,  69,  70 ;  en- 
tire direction  of  legislation  by,  70, 
78  ;  hasty  consideration  of  reports 
of,  by  Ilouse,  71 ;  four  specially 
licensed,  71,  72  ;  average  time 
given  to  each  of  the,  to  report,  72 , 
call  of,  for  reports,  72,  73 ;  hasten- 
ing of  business  by  the,  74  et  seq. ; 
control  of  debate  by,  75  et  seq. ;  ar- 
guments before  the,  81-85 ;  divis- 
ion of  power  amongst  the,  92 ;  both 


INDEX. 


337 


parties  represented  on,  99 ;  ap- 
pointed in  House  by  Speaker,  103 ; 
,  history  of  rules  of  appointment  of, 
lt4 ;  aided  by  Speaker,  108 ;  Ro- 
man magistrates  and  the,  109 ; 
"  little  legislatttres  "  made  up  of 
all  sorts  of  men,  113;  contrasted 
with  single  Standing  Committee  of 
Parliament,  116,  117  :  of  House  of 
Commons,  122 ;  which  control  na- 
tional income,  136  ;  which  create 
demands  upon  the  Treasury,  167, 
168  :  on  expenditures,  175-177  ; 
multiplication  of,  by  Congress, 
176,  n. ;  approachability  of  the, 
by  lobbyists,  189,  190  ;  choice  of, 
in  the  Senate,  212,  n. :  supervision 
of  the  departments  by  the,  231, 
262,  271,  272  ;  may  command,  but 
cannot  superintend,  271 ;  part  of 
the  mechanism  of  Congress,  281 ; 
offset  by  legislative  caucus,  326. 

Commons,  House  of,  represented  by 
Ministers  of  Crown,  59, 244  :  char- 
acter of  debate  in  the,  94,  95; 
Cabinet's  place  and  functions  in 
the,  117  et  "eq  :  private  members' 
bills  in  the,  120,  121 ;  committees 
of,  122  :  functions  and  character 
of  Speaker  of,  122 ;  the,  in  session, 
123;  compared  with  French  Cham- 
ber, 123,  128,  129 :  controls,  does 
not  originate,  financial  measures, 
137  :  opposition  of,  to  civil  service 
reform,  285,  2-9 ;  cross-examina- 
tion of  Ministers  in,  300. 

Conference  Committees  on  appropri- 
ation bills,  157,  158,  280. 

Congress,  the  centre  and  source  of 
power,  11 ;  early  awkwardness  of, 
21,  44 ;  made  dominant  and  irre- 
sistible by  doctrine  of  "  implied 
powers,"'  23  ;  check  upon,  by  Ju- 
diciary, 35,  36 ;  power  of,  over 
federal  courts,  38 ;  check  upon, 
by  President,  41 ;  quick  assump- 
tion of  control  by,  44, 45 ;  enlarged 
powers  of,  created  by  eftlciency  of 
organization,  47 ;  prominence  of 
Senate  in  contests  with  executive, 
47  et  seq.;  proper  central  object 
of  constitutional  study,  67  ;  com- 
plex organization  of,  58  ;  without 
authoritative  leaders,  69,  92,  205, 
212,  315 ;  embarrassments  of  new 
member  in,  61  tt  Sfq. ;  work  of, 
parceled  out  to  Committees,  67; 
delays  of  each  new,  in  getting  to 
work,  72,  73  J  uninteresting  char- 
acter of  debate  in,  95,  96 ;  meami 
22 


of  financial  control  by,  147;  su- 
pervision of  expenditures  by,  175, 
179 ;  dilTiculties  of  constituencies 
in  controlling,  18C-189  ;  cause  for 
distrust  of,  186  et  seq. :  lobbying 
in,  189, 190 ;  failure  of  presidential 
nominating  caucus  of,  247  :  does 
not  breed  administrators,  251, 252  ; 
and  the  Executive,  party  diversity 
between,  267  ;  defective  means  of, 
for  controiling  executive  action, 
270  eC  Seq.,  3u2 ;  and  the  Execu- 
tive, absence  of  confidential  co- 
opeiution  between,  278;  exactions 
of,  upon  the  departments,  '^78, 
279;  diligence  of,  in  legislation, 
294,  297  ;  neces.sity  for  discussion 
of  administration  by,  301  et  set/.  ; 
inforniittg  function  of,  to  be  mag- 
nified, 303  ;  griisps  after  new  sub- 
jects of  legislation,  304  ;  freedom 
of  action  possible  to,  304,  305  :  in- 
ferior to  the  Press  as  a  critical  au- 
thority, 306,  319 ;  embarrassments 
of,  in  making  its  authority  opei. 
and  respectable,  312  et  xeq. ;  and 
Parliament  succeeding  Revolution 
settlement  in  Eng.,315;  without 
adequate  information,  315 ;  ten- 
dency towards  concentration  of 
federal  powers  in  hamls  of,  315, 
316 ;  irresponsibility  of,  318 :  agree- 
ment and  stability  of  majorities 
in,  324  et  seq.  ;  parties  in,  disci- 
plined by  caucus,  326,  327. 

Conkling,  Roscoe,  resignation  of, 
from  Senate,  2-37. 

Constituencies,  difficulties  of,  in  con- 
trolling Congress,  186-189. 

Constitution,  The,  its  wayward  for- 
tunes, 1  ;  difficulties  attending 
adoption  of,  2  ;  outward  conform- 
ity to  principles  of,  in  former 
times,  3;  present  attitude  of  criti- 
cism toward,  5 ;  its  change  of  sub- 
stance and  persistency  of  form,  7  ; 
growth  of,  7  ;  elementary  struc- 
ture of,  8 ;  in  operation  and  in 
the  books,  9,  10 ;  "  literary  the- 
ory "  of,  12  ;  "  implied  powers  " 
of,  22  et  seq. ;  centre  of  all  early 
political  contests,  196  et  seq. ;  ques- 
tions of  interpretation  of,  not  now 
urgent,  202  ;  practiially  amended 
without  being  constitutionally 
amended,  242  :  modeled  after  the 
English  Constitution,  307  et  seq.  ; 
liagehot  on  multijilicity  of  au. 
thorities  in,  309,  310;  forms  of, 
hold  Congresii  back  from  making 


838 


INDEX. 


its  power  conTenient  and  honest, 
312. 

Consultation  between  President  and 
Senate,  not  real,  232  et  seq. ;  means 
of,  between  President  and  Senate, 
234. 

Contingent  Fund  of  Treasury  Dept., 
fraudulent  use  of,  178. 

Convention,  Constitutional,  of  1787, 
268,  284,  807,  309. 

Convention,  national  nominating, 
real  functions  of  a,  245  tt  sey.  ; 
minority  representation  in  compo- 
sition of  a,  246;  conditions  sur- 
rounding choice  of  a  candidate  by 
a,  250,  251  ;  does  not  pick  from 
Congress,  251,  252. 

Cooley,  Judge,  on  balance  between 
state  and  federal  govts.,  17,  18  ; 
on  checlcs  upon  federal  encroach- 
ment, 33,  34  :  on  judicial  control 
of  the  Kxecutive,  35  ;  on  the  orig- 
inality of  the  Constitution,  55, 56 : 
incompleteness  of  constitutional 
view  of,  56,  57. 

"Courtesy  "  of  the  Senate,  238. 

Criticism,  necessity  for  a  new,  of 
constitutional  methods,  53  et  seq.  ; 
former  methods  of  constitutional, 
57  ;  Congress  central  object  of  con- 
stitutional, 57;  of  legislation  by 
Senate  219, 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  207,  208. 

Cushman,  Samuel,  89. 

Dale,  Mr.,  on  indifference  of  public 
opinion  in  U.  S.,  331. 

Debate,  time  for,  and  conditions  of, 
in  House,  75  et  seq. ;  importance 
of,  78 ;  on  Ways  and  Means  and 
-Appropriations,  78  ;  absence  of  in- 
stinct of,  in  House,  79 ;  relegated 
to  Standing  Committees,  81,  82  ; 
in  Standing  Committees,  81 ;  value 
of,  in  Committees,  82 ;  kind  of, 
necessary,  85 ;  physical  limitations 
of,  in  House,  86  et  seq. ;  in  early 
Houses',  89,  90  ;  uninteresting  and 
uninstructive  character  of,  in  Con- 
gress, 95,  96,  101,  184,  185,  29S  ; 
parliamentary,  centres  about  Min- 
istry, 95  :  necessity  for,  under  re- 
sponsible Cabinet  govt.,  119  ;  in 
French  Assembly,  125  et  seq. ;  of 
appropriation  bills,  154,  155,  183, 
184 ;  of  all  financial  questions  by 
Congress,  183  ;  in  Senate,  211,  216 
et  seq.  ;  in  Congress,  directed  at 
random,  298  ;  chief  use  of  public, 
in  representative  bodies,  299  et 


seq. ;  of  administration,  cannot  b« 
too  much  of,  in  Congress,  a04. 

Deficiency  Bills,  159. 

Democracy,  limited  in  U.  S.  by 
Senate,  226. 

Denmark,  treaty  with,  in  regard  to 
St.  Thomas,  in  Senate,  50,  61. 

Departments,  communications  of, 
with  Appropriation  Committees 
concerning  estimates,  160-164 ; 
present  methods  of  book-keepin? 
in  the,  163 ;  heads  of,  make  in- 
terest with  Appropriation  Com- 
mittees, 163 ;  Senate's  share  in 
control  of  the,  231  ;  and  Congress, 
defective  means  of  cooDeration  be- 
tween, 270,  271 ;  demoralizing  re- 
lations of,  with  Congress,  277, 278  ; 
exactions  of  Congress  upon,  278, 
279  ;  objects  of  suspicion  because 
of  their  privacy,  299,  300. 

Eaton,  D.  B.,  on  civil  .service  reform 
in  Great  Britain,  285. 

Education,  federal  aid  to,  29. 

Election,  Senate  shiekled  by  the 
method  of  its,  224 ;  of  President, 
real  method  of,  243  ft  srq.  f  vir- 
tual, by  nominating  conventions, 
245. 

Electors,  presidential,  balanced 
against  people,  40  ;  agents  of 
nominating  conventions,  245,  250 ; 
history  of  action  of,  246,  247,  250. 

Ellsworth,  Oliver,  on  veto  power, 
52. 

Embargo,  the,  21. 

English  Constitution,  likeness  be- 
tween the,  and  that  of  U.  S.,  7, 
307  et  seq. ;  character  of,  when 
Constitution  of  U.  S.  was  formed, 
307,  308,  310,  311. 

Estimates,  in  House  of  Commons, 
187 ;  preparation  of  the  federal, 
148,  149  ;  federal,  go  to  Commit- 
tee on  Appropriations,  149 ;  com- 
munications and  conferences  be- 
tween Appropriation  Committees 
and  the  departments  concerning, 
160-164 ;  thoroughness  of  later, 
163. 

Exchequer,  Chancellor  of,  prepara- 
tion and  submission  to  Commons 
of  budget  by,  140-142 ;  represented 
by  House  Committee  of  Ways  aud 
Means,  170 ;  financial  policy  of, 
compared  with  policy  of  House 
Committee  of  Ways  and  Means, 
171-175. 
Executive,    242-293;    relations   of, 


INDEX. 


339 


with  Senate,  230  et  seq. ;  really 
chosen  by  representative,  deliber- 
ative body,  244 ;  and  legislative 
service  divorced  in  U.  S.,  251-253 ; 
the  President  not  all  of  the,  257  ; 
elements  constituting  the,  in  U.  S., 
259 ;  functions  bestowed  upon  the 
Secretaries,  260 ;  and  Congress, 
party  diversity  between,  267 ; 
Roger  Sherman  upon  real  char- 
acter of,  268  ;  and  Congress,  de- 
fective means  of  cooperation  be- 
tween, 270  't  seq. ;  responsibility 
of,  and  civil  service  reform,  285 
et  seq. ;  suspected  because  not 
clearly  visible  through  Congress, 
299,  300  ;  embarrassed  by  half- 
informed  criticism,  305. 
Expenditure,  questions  of,  discon- 
nected from  questions  of  supply, 
174,  175  ;  supervision  of,  by  Con- 
gress, 175-179. 

Federal  govt.,  the,  early  vireakness 
and  timidity  of,  l8, 19  ;  growth  in 
self-confidence  and  power  of,  19, 
20 ;  first  questions  that  engaged 
the  attention  of,  20  ;  brought  to 
every  man's  door,  25  ;  supervision 
of  elections  by,  27  ;  highest  point 
of  aggression  of,  33  ;  advantage  of 
indirect  taxation  to,  133 ;  necessity 
for  two  chambers  in,  221.  222 ;  pos- 
sible paraly.sis  of,  in  emergencies, 
282 ;  rapidly  widening  sphere  of, 
316,  317  ;  weakness  of  our  present, 
318. 

Federal  and  state  govts.,  balance 
between,  13  ;  object  of  balance  be- 
tween, 14 ;  early  conditions  of 
balance  between,  15  ;  Hamilton  on 
balance  between,  16,  17  :  present 
inefllcacy  of  balance  between,  17  ; 
balance  between,  destroyed  by  doc- 
trine of  "implied  powers,"'  23; 
balance  between,  dependent  on 
federal  judiciary,  24  ;  balance  be- 
tween, prejudiced  by  internal  im- 
provements, 28,  and  by  federal 
power  over  commerce,  30,  31 ;  bal- 
ance between,  last  pictured  in 
"  reconstruction,''  32,  33. 

Federalist,  the,  quoted,  16,  17. 

Ferry,  M.  Jules,  248. 

Fillmore,  President,  259. 

Finance,  loose  govt,  practices  con- 
cerning, 130,  131 :  comparatively 
unembarrassed  charr.cter  of  Amer- 
ican, 135  ;  necessity  for  responsi- 
bility in  direction  of,  135 ;  shifting 


character  of  federal,  135,  136; 
number  of  Committees  control- 
ling, in  Congress,  IStJ ;  adminis- 
tration of,  in  England,  137-146; 
administi-ation  of,  in  U.  S.,  146 
et  seq.,  280;  Senate  Committee  on, 
169  ;  confusion  of  public  opinion 
in  regard  to  action  of  Congress 
upon,  2S0. 

Financial,  officials,  accessibility  of 
English,  in  the  Commons,  146, 
147;  officials,  separation  of,  from 
Congress  in  the  U.  S.,  147  ;  officials, 
mere  witnesses  in  U.  S.,  164;  offi- 
cials, irresponsibility  of,  for  esti- 
mates in  U.  S.,  164 ;  system  of 
U.  S.  contrasted  with  that  of  Eug., 
180 ;  system  of  U.  S.,  incoherency 
of,  180,  181 :  policy  of  Congress, 
shifting  character  of,  181,  182  ; 
legislation,  prominent  place  of, 
in  congressional  business,  183 ; 
questions,  control  of,  by  Commit- 
tees in  Senate,  212,  n. ;  questions, 
confusion  of  public  opinion  re- 
garding action  of  Congress  upon, 
•.i80. 

Fish,  Secretary,  and  treaty  with 
Denmark,  51. 

Foreign  relations,  principal  concern 
of  federal  govt,  during  first  quar- 
ter century,  43;  band  of  Senate 
in,  49  et  seq.,  232  et  seq. ;  no  i-eal 
consultation  between  President 
and  Senate  concerning,  232  ;  Sen- 
ate Committee  on,  234. 

France,  public  accounts,  how  kept 
in,  145;  Ministry,  how  chosen  in, 
244. 

French  Assembly,  organization  of, 
l'i3;  parties  in,  124;  proceedings 
of,  125  et  seq. ;  compared  with 
House  of  Representatives  and 
House  of  Commons,  127-129. 

French  Revolution,  20,  43. 

Froude,  J.  A.,  on  political  orators, 
215. 

Gallatin,  Albert,  181. 

Oeorge  III.,  187,  308,  309. 

Gladstoue,  Wm.  £.,  59  ;  on  direct 
and  indirect  taxes,  134  ;  209,  322. 

Government,  by  cliairmen  of  Stand- 
ing Committees,  102 ;  by  Standing 
Committees,  contrasted  with  govt, 
by  responsible  Ministry,  116  ft 
S'q.  ;  conditions  of  perfect  par* 
ty,  267,  268;  "by  declamation," 
318. 

Grant,  President,  and  treaty  witli 


S40 


INDEX. 


Denmark,  61 ;  nominates  Smythe, 
235. 

Green,  J.  R.,  on  ParliameDt  and 
public  opinion  under  Geo.  III., 
187,  188 ;  on  temper  and  embar- 
rassments of  the  Parliament  suc- 
ceeding the  KeTolution  Settlement 
in  Kngland,  313,  314. 

GrtJTy,  President,  243. 

Hall  of  House  of  RepresentatiTes, 
size  of,  86  el  seq  . 

Hamilton,  Alex.,  on  balance  between 
state  and  national  govts.,  16,  17: 
influence  of,  upon  early  policy  of 
govt.,  21;  advocacy  of  protective 
duties,  22  ;  announces  doctrine  of 
"implied  powers,'"  22:  181,  259, 
306,  307. 

Hampden,  John,  208. 

Henry,  Patrick,  209. 

Hoar,  G.  F.,  Senator,  on  time  for  re- 
porting given  to  Committees,  72  : 
on  suspension  of  the  Rules  in 
Hous^,  111,  112. 

House  of  Commons,  See  '  Commons, 
House  of." 

House  of  Lords,  Bagehot  on  the, 
220. 

House  of  Representatives,  See  '  Rep- 
resentatives, House  of." 

Impeachment,  275,  276. 

"  Implied  powers,"  enunciated  by 
Hamilton,  22;  sustained  national 
bank,  22  ;  McCulloch  v.  Maryland, 
23 ;  a  vigorous  principle  oit  con- 
stitutional growth,  23  ;  effect  of, 
upon  atatus  of  Stiites,  2.3,  24  ;  prac- 
tical i.ssue  of  doctrine  of,  25  et 
seq. 

Internal  Improvements,  28  ;  moral 
effect  of,  upon  state  policy,  29 : 
history  of  policy  of,  165-167  ;  sums 
appropriated  for,  167 ;  character  of 
opposition  to,  197. 

Jackson,  President,  166,  204 :  why 
chosen  President,  252 ;  259,  266. 

James  II.,  213. 

Jefferson,  Thos.,  leads  his  party  as 
Pi-esident,  41,  204,  252. 

Johnson,  President,  contest  of,  with 
Senate,  49. 

Judiciary,  power  of,  to  control  Ex- 
ecutive, 34,  35  :  power  of,  to  con- 
trol Congress,  35,  36;  change  of 
party  color  in,  37  ;  power  of  Con- 
gre.'.s  over,  38,  39. 

Judiciary  Act  of  1789,  39. 


Kentucky,  protest  of,  against  Alien 
and  Sedition  Laws,  21. 

Leaders,  absence  of  authoritative,  in 
Congress,  53,  92,  205,  212,  315; 
lacking  in  parties  of  U.  S.,  187  ; 
raised  up  by  the  constitutional 
struggles  before  the  war,  199  tt 
seq. ;  slavery  and  anti-slavery,  201, 
202  ;  no  offices  for  political,  in 
U.  S.,  203  ;  training  necessary  for, 
255,  256 ;  political,  authority  of, 
in  England,  3:^3. 

Leadership,  conditions  of  political, 
in  U.  S.,  204  et  seq.,  323 ;  charac- 
ter of  legislative,  206  ft  seq. ;  lack 
of,  in  Senate,  212,  213 ;  the  prize 
of,  214  ;  lack  of,  in  U.  S.  makes 
parties  conglomerate,  324. 

"  Legal  tender  "'  decision,  33,  n.,  38. 

Legislation,  characterof,  determined 
by  privileges  of  Committees  and 
necessity  for  haste,  74  ;  compro- 
mise character  of,  in  Congress, 
101  ;  conglomerate  and  heteroge- 
neous, ll;i,  325  ;  part  of  President 
in,  by  virtue  of  veto  power, 
260,  266  :  and  administration  con- 
trasted, 273,  274  ;  Buckle  on  pres- 
ent value  of,  295  ;  nature  of  pres- 
ent task  of,  295,  296  ;  generates 
legislation,  297  ;  not  more  impor- 
tant than  administration,  297 ; 
general  function  of,  301,  302 ; 
tendency  toward  widening  sphere 
of,  316,  317. 

Legislative  service  divorced  from 
Executive,  in  U.  S.,  251-253. 

"  Letter  "  of  Secretary  of  Treasury 
to  Congress,  149,  153. 

Lincoln,  President,  259,  283,  n. 

"  Literary  theory  "  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, 12,  268,  284;  marred  by 
growth  of  federal  powers,  .30. 

Lobbying  in  Congress,  189,  190. 

Lodge,  11.  C,  quoted  with  regard  to 
Hamilton,  21,  22. 

"  Log-rolling,'"  169. 

Lords,  House  of,  Bagehot  on,  220. 

Louisiana,  purchase  of,  20,  43. 

Lowell,  J.  R.,  on  "government  by 
declamation,'"  318. 

Macaulay,  criticism  of  legislative 
leadership  by,  207. 

JIachiavelli,  on  respousibility  of 
ministers,  275. 

Maclay,  \Vm.,  Sketches  of  First  Sen- 
ate by,  quoted,  24,  n. 

McMaster,  J.  B.,  quoted,  19. 


INDEX. 


341 


Madison,  President,  165  ,  refuses  to 
meet  Senate,  234,  n. 

Magna  Carta,  and  the  Constitution 
of  U.  S.,  7. 

Member,  the  new,  embarrassments 
of,  in  the  House,  61  et  seq. 

Members,  suppression  of  iudepend- 
ence  and  ability  amongst,  in  the 
House,  by  the  Rules,  110. 

Membership,  of  Senate,  made  up  by 
promotions  from  House,  210  ;  of 
Senate,  biennially  renewed  in  part, 
228,  229. 

>Iill,  J.  S.,  "  legislative  commis- 
sion" propose!  by,  115,  129,  192. 

Ministry,  parliamentary  debate  cen- 
tres around  British,  95 ;  disinte- 
grate, in  Congress,  102 ;  parlia- 
mentary position  of  British,  95, 
244 ;  British,  a  single  Standing 
Committee  of  Parliament,  117 ; 
necessity  of  public  debate  to  Brit- 
ish, 119;  British,  compared  with 
French,  123,  124,  129 ;  history  of 
parliamentary  responsibility  of 
British,  286-288. 

Monroe,  President,  165,  252. 

"  Morning  hours,''  73. 

Nation,  the,  letter  to,  on  federal 
financial  system,  quoted,  191 ;  on 
status  of  Cabinet,  quoted,  269. 

National  sovereignty,  growth  of  sen- 
timent of,  31,  32  ;  sentiment  of, 
malies  advent  and  issue  of  the  war 
inevitable,  32. 

Newcastle,  Duke  of,  286. 

Nominations,  the  Senate  and,  235  ; 
popular  interest  attaching  to  ac- 
tion of  Senate  on,  236,  237  ;  of 
Presidents  by  conventions,  virtual 
character  of,  245. 

North,  Lord,  287,  308. 

Northcote,  Sir  Statford,  322. 

Offices,  political  and  non-political, 
290,  291. 

Orators,  character  of  the  ruling,  of 
our  race,  208  et  seq. ;  natuitil  lead- 
ers of  a  .self-governing  people,  209  ; 
Froude  on  political,  215  ;  political, 
without  authority  or  responsibil- 
ity in  U.  S.,  319  et  seq. :  political 
weight  of,  in  England,  321-324. 

Otis,  James,  209. 

Parties,  vagueness  of  responsibility 
of,  for  legislation  in  U.  8.,  96-101 ; 
both,  represented  on  Standing 
Committees,  99 ;  in  V.  S.,  absence 


of  responsible  organization  in,  187 ; 
in  U.  S.,  headless,  couglomerata 
character  of,  324  ;  in  Congress, 
discipline  of,  326,  327 ;  in  Cou- 
gress,  kept  together  by  caucus, 
330. 
Parton,  on  purposes  of  a  national 

parliament,  250,  251. 
Party,  govt,  by,  practical  necessity 
for,  97  et  seq. ;  organization,  out- 
,   side  Congress,  98  ;  inside  Congress, 
99  ;   choice  of  Speaker  by,   107 ; 
govt,  by,  perfected  in  British  sys- 
tem, 117  et  seq. ;  diversity  between 
Executive  and  Congress,  2G7  :  con- 
ditions of  govt,  by,  207,  268 ;  re- 
lations of  President  and  Cabinet, 
269 ;    insignificance    of    Cabinet, 
270 ;   leaders  in  England,   weight 
and  position  of,  322. 
Peel,  Sir  Robt.,  209;   on  questions 
asked  Prime  Minister  in  the  Com- 
mons, 300. 
Pension  Act,  in  48th  Congress,  79-81. 
"  Permanent    appropriations,"   162, 

153. 
Pitt,  \Vm.,  209  ;  elected  to  rule  Com- 
mons, 249. 
Political  discretion  of  President  and 

Congress,  31,  35. 
Power,  dififusion  of,  in  Congress, 
92,  206  ;  irresponsible,  92, 93, 314; 
and  accountability,  283,  284. 
Presidency,  tendency  to  raise  gov- 
ernors of  States  to  the,  253. 
President,  the,  and  Supreme  Court, 
relations  between,  35 ;  independ- 
ence and  influence  of,  41  ;  de- 
clining prestige  of  office  of,  43; 
belittled  by  growth  of  congres- 
sional power,  43 ;  and  Cabinet, 
division  of  labor  between,  45,  46 ; . 
veto  power  of,  52,  260  ;  and  Sen- 
ate, no  real  consultation  between, 
232  et  seq.  ;  irresponsible  dictation 
of  Senate  to,  238,  239  ;  functional 
contrast  of,  with  English  Prime 
Minister,  249 ;  conditions  sur- 
rounding choice  of  a,  by  conven- 
tion, 25lJ,  251 ;  character  of  usual 
functions  of,  254 ;  not  all  of  the 
Executive,  257  ;  relations  of,  to 
Cabinet,  258,  269 ;  De  Tocqucville 
on  position  of,  266,  n. ;  party  rela- 
tions of,  269  ;  party  insignificance 
of,  270  ;  and  Congress,  defective 
means  of  coiiperation  between, 
270,  271. 
President  of  French  Assembly,  f uno* 
tioug  and  powers  of,  125, 126. 


842 


INDEX. 


Presidents,  character  and  influence 
of  the  early,  41  ;  decline  of  char- 
acter of,  along  with  crystalliza- 
tion of  electoral  system,  42 ;  real 
method  of  electing,  243  et  seq. 

Press,  the,  political  influence  of,  in 
U.  S.,  305,  306,  819-321 ;  in  Eng- 
land, subordinate  to  political  lead- 
ers, 321. 

Previous  Question,  75,  90 ;  in  the 
Senate,  211,  n.,  218. 

Prime  Minister,  method  of  selecting 
a,  in  England  and  France,  248 ; 
and  President,  contrast  between, 
249 ;  questions  asked  the,  in  House 
of  Commons,  300. 

Printing,  prerogatives  of  Committee 
on,  71,  72  ;  of  unspoken  speeches, 
91. 

"  Private  bill  day,''  73. 

Protective  policy  of  Committee  of 
Ways  and  Means,  172-174. 

Public  life,  conditions  of,  in  U.  S., 
195  et  seq. ;  in  England,  214 ;  at- 
tractiveness of  leadership  in,  214. 

Public  opinion,  not  instructed  by 
congressional  debate,  101 ;  diffi- 
culties of,  in  understanding  and 
controlling  Congre.<s,  186-189;  not 
led  in  U.  S.,  187  ;  distrust  of  Con- 
gress by,  188  ;  confusion  of,  with 
regard  to  congressional  policy, 
280  ;  instruction  of,  important 
duty  of  representative  assembly, 
297  et  seq.  ;  information  of,  by  in- 
quisitive public  body,  300,  301  ; 
leaders  of  English,  322  ;  paiulysis 
of,  in  U.  S.,  331. 

Pulteney,  286,  287. 

Randolph,  John,  89  ;  interview  of, 
with  Treasury  officials,  162,  163. 

"Reconstruction,"  reflected  altered 
condition  of  balance  between  state 
and  federal  govts.,  32,  33. 

"Record,"  Congressional,  unspoken 
speeches  in,  91;  little  read,  94. 

Reform  Bill  of  1832  in  England, 
220. 

Reichstag,  consent  of,  necessary  to 
policy  in  Germany,  59. 

Reports,  of  Standing  Committees, 
time  given  to,  72 ;  backed  by 
neither  party,  96 ;  thoroughly  con- 
sidered in  early  Congresses,  106  ; 
of  Committee  on  Appropriations, 
privileges  of,  153,  164 ;  of  Confer- 
ence Committees,  extraordinary 
privilege  of,  168 ;  annual,  of  Treas- 
ury,  referred   to   Committee   of 


Ways  and  Means,  170,  171 ;  oi 
Committee  on  Appropriations  pre- 
ferred to  reports  of  Committee  of 
Ways  and  Means,  174. 

Representative  assemblies,  duties 
and  means  of,  in  instructing  pub- 
lic opinion,  298  et  seq. ;  supremacy 
of,  in  every  system  of  self-govern- 
ment, 311. 

Representative  government,  govern- 
ment by  advocacy,  208. 

Representatives,  House  of,  58-192 ; 
position  of  Speaker  in,  69, 103-108 ; 
led  by  chairmen  of  Standing  Com- 
mittees, 60 ;  multiplicity  of  leaders 
in,  61 ;  rules  of,  restrain  individual 
activity,  63 ;  introduction  of  bills 
in,  64 ;  bills  in,  introduced  on 
Mondays,  66  ;  early  course  of  bills 
in,  67,  68  ;  daily  course  of  busi- 
ness in,  73  ;  press  of  time  in  busi- 
ness of,  74,  90 ;  conditions  of  de- 
bate in,  75  et  seq. ;  absence  of 
instinct  of  debate  in,  79 ;  best 
discussion  impossible  in,  86 ;  hall 
of,  86,  87  ;  debate  in,  in  former 
times,  89 ;  compared  with  Ro- 
man assembly,  109 :  concentration 
of  federal  power  in,  110;  suspen- 
sion of  rules  of,  to  pass  bills, 
111,  112  ;  compared  with  British 
Commons,  116  et  seq.  ;  with  Eng- 
lish and  French  cliambers,  129 ; 
disintegrate  character  of,  210 ; 
"  latent  unity  "  of,  with  Senate, 
224. 

Responsibility,  of  administrators,  to 
representative  chamber  for  inelfi- 
ciency,  274,  276,  277  ;  of  ministers 
Machiavelli  on,  275 ;  scattering  of, 
by  federal  constitutional  system, 
281 :  with  power,  283,  284 ;  of  Ex- 
ecutive, and  civil  service  reform, 
285  et  seq. ;  history  of  ministerial, 
in  England,  286  et  seq. 

Resumption  Act  of  1875,  185. 

Revenue,  controlled  by  House  Com- 
mittee of  Ways  and  Means  and 
Senate  Committee  on  Finance, 
169  ;  policy  of  Committee  of  Ways 
and  Means  and  of  English  Chan- 
cellor of  Exchequer,  171-175  ;  sub- 
ordinate to  Supply  in  Congress, 
174,  175. 

Revolution,  English,  of  1688,  char- 
acter of  Parliament  succeeding  the, 
313. 

Revolution,  French,  20,  43. 

Rivers  and  Harbors,  Committee  on, 
165 ;    prerogatives   of   Committer 


INDEX. 


343 


on,  167 ;  Committee  on,  and  "  log- 
rolling,"' 168. 

Rockingham,  Lord,  287. 

Roman  assembly  and  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives, 109. 

Rosebery,  Lord,  on  the  Senate,  228. 

Rulex  of  House,  restrict  individual 
activity  of  members  of  House,  63  ; 
support  privileges  of  Standing 
Committees,  66,  71,  74  ;  complex- 
ity of,  73,  74 ;  principle  of,  74  ; 
readopted  biennially,  104 ;  repress 
independeuce  and  ability,  110 ; 
oligarchy  of  Committee  on.  111  ; 
suspensioQ  of,  to  pass  bills,  111, 
112. 

St  Thoma.1,  treaty  with  Denmark 
regarding  island  of,  50,  51. 

Seces.iion,  character  of  contest  over, 
198,  199. 

Senate,  the,  193-241 ;  overt  char- 
acter of  contests  of,  with  Presi- 
dent, 48 ;  efforts  of,  to  control 
nominations,  49  ;  usurpations  of, 
and  civil  service  reform,  49  ;  semi- 
executive  powers  of,  in  regard  to 
foreign  policy,  49  et  seq. ;  and 
treaty  with  Denmark,  60 ;  and 
Alabama  claims,  51 :  thoroughness 
of  discu.-<3ion  in,  94  ;  amendment 
of  appropriation  bills  by,  155, 156 ; 
usual  estimates  of,  193, 194 ;  char- 
acter and  composition  of,  194, 195 ; 
conditions  of  public  life,  shaping 
character  of,  195  ft  seq  ;  a  select 
House  of  Representatives,  210 ; 
contrasts  of,  with  the  House,  211 ; 
organized  like  the  House,  212 ; 
choice  of  Committees  in,  212 ;  ab- 
sence of  leadership  in,  213  et  seq. ; 
character  of  debate  in,  216  et  seq.  ; 
equality  of,  with  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, 223 ;  and  House  of  Rep- 
re.«entatives,  "  latent  unity  "  be- 
tween, 224 ;  not  a  class  chamber, 
225 ;  limits  democracy  In  (Consti- 
tution, 226 ;  dignity  and  remove 
from  popular  heat  of,  227  ;  a  real 
check  upon  the  House,  228 ;  lia- 
bility of,  to  biennial  change  in 
membership,  228,  229 ;  "  slow  and 
steady  ''  forms  of,  230 ;  share  of, 
In  control  of  executive  depart- 
ments, 231 ;  and  President,  no  real 
consultation  between,  232  et  seq.  ; 
and  President,  means  of  consulta- 
tion between,  23J ;  and  nomina- 
tions, 235  et  seq. ;  "  courtesy  ''  of. 


238  ;  irresponsible  dictation  ot  to 

President.  238. 

Sherman,  Roger,  268. 

Silver  Bill,  the  Bland,  185. 

Slavery,  character  of  contest  oTer, 
198-202,  pasfim. 

Smith,  Robt.,  Secretary  of  Treasury, 
162. 

Smytbe,  nominated  Minister  to  St. 
Petersburtj  by  Pres.  Grant,  236. 

Speaker,  of  House  of  Representa* 
tives,  appoints  leaders  of  House, 
60  ;  prerogatives  of,  103-108  ;  ap- 
points Stiiuding  Committees,  103 ; 
history  of  appointing  power  of, 
104  ;  power  of  appointing  of,  re- 
newed with  Rules,  105  ;  chosen  by 
party  vote,  107 ;  personal  char- 
acter of,  107  ;  use  of  power  by, 
in  constituting  and  aiding  Commit- 
tees, 108  ;  concentration  of  power 
in  hands  of,  110,  111 ;  of  Hou.«e  of 
Commons,  functions  and  character 
of,  122. 

Stages  of  national  political  growth, 
before  civil  war,  200  ;  since,  202. 

"  Star  Route  ''  trials,  178,  n. 

State  and  federal  governments,  bal- 
auce  between.  See  '  Federal  and 
state  governments. " 

States,  the,  disadvantages  of  direct 
taxation  to,  133. 

Sumner,  Chas.,  Chairman  Senate 
Committee  on  Foreign  Relations, 
235. 

Sumner,  Prof.  W.  G.,  on  task  of 
legislator,  296. 

Sunderland,  Karl  of,  314. 

Supervision  of  elections  by  federal 
govt.,  27. 

Supply,  Committee  of,  in  House  of 
Commons,  137-139 ;  vital  character 
of  votes  of,  in  House  of  Commons. 
139  ;  Committee  of,  in  House  of 
llepre.^entatives,  154  ;  questions  of, 
take  precedence  of  questions  of 
revenue  in  Congress.  174. 

Surpluses,  173,  174,  179. 

Suspension  of  Rules,  bills  pa.<<8ed  un- 
der a,  in  House,  111,  112. 

Swiss  Constitution  and  bicameral 
system,  221. 

Tariff  of  1883,  character  of  contest 
over,  198. 

Taxation,  sensitiveness  of  people 
concerning,  131  ;  direct  and  indi- 
rect, 132,  133 ;  Mr.  Gladstone  on 
direct  and  indirect,  134 ;  direct,  by 


344 


INDEX. 


States,  indirect,  by  federal  govt., 
133. 

Telegraph  lines,  con.stitutional  in- 
terpretation in  connectiou  with, 
30,  31. 

Tenure  of  Office  Act,  49,  277. 

Tei'iiis  of  office,  siiort,  256 ;  of  the 
Secretaries,  261,  264  et  seq. 

Tocqueville,  De,  on  position  of  Pres- 
ident, 266,  n. 

Townshend,  Chas.,  207,  208. 

Treasury,  acces.sibility  of  heads  of 
British,  in  the  Commons,  146, 147 ; 
"  Letter  "  from  Secretary  of,  149  ; 
annual  reports  of,  referred  to  Com- 
mittee of  Ways  and  Means,  170  ; 
character  of  annual  reports  of, 
170,  171 ;  Secretary  of,  duties  of, 
26-1  ;  non-political  character  of 
functions  of  Secretary  of,  264. 

"  Tribune  ■■'  of  French  Assembly, 
127,  128. 

Turgot,  M.,  on  bicameral  system  of 
U.  S.,220. 

Van  Buren,  Martin,  259. 
Veto,  power  of,  52,  260. 
Vice-Presidant,  the,  240,  241. 
Victorian  Parliament,  two  chambers 

of,  223. 
Virginia,  protest  of,  against  Alien  and 

Sedition  Laws,  21. 

Walpole,  Sir  Robt.,  208,  286. 

War,  change  wrought  by  the  civil, 


in  constitutional  methods  and  in 
constitutional  criticism,  5  et  seq. ; 
the  civil,  a  struggle  between  na- 
tionality and  principles  of  disin- 
tegration, 32;  opened  a  new  period 
of  public  life  in  U.  S.,  195. 

M'ashington,  antagonisms  in  first 
Cabinet  of,  2 ;  influence  of  tlie 
Executive  under,  41,  246,  252,  269. 

Ways  and  Means,  debate  of,  78 ; 
"  Brahmins  •'  of  Conin)ittee  of, 
111  ;  chairmen  of,  fedei-al  Chan- 
cellors of  Kxchequer,  1134  ;  prefer- 
ence of  Committee  of,  for  indirect 
taxation,  134 ;  Committee  of,  in 
House  of  Commons,  139-144 ; 
weight  of  votes  of  Committee  of, 
in  Commons,  WJ, :  House  Com- 
mittee of,  formerly  controlled  ap- 
propriations, 161  ;  character  of 
Committee  of,  170  ;  policy  of  C(  m- 
mittee  of,  compared  with  policy 
of  Knglish  Chancellor  of  Exche- 
quer, 171-175  ;  reports  of,  deferred 
to  reports  of  Committee  on  Appro- 
priations, 174,  183,  184. 

"  Ways  and  Means-Bills,''  143.  144. 

Webster,  Daniel,  89,  204,  218,  252, 
259. 

William  the  Silent,  207,  208. 

William  III.,  313,  314. 

Windham,  Wm.,  207,  208. 

Year,  British  financial,  140  ;  federal 
fiuaucial,  148. 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

405  Hiigard  Avenue,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90024-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library 

from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


7( 


t/ ->/'>> 


